Vannevar builds AI systems for the Department of War's most consequential missions. We have 125 deployments across every branch and combatant command spanning our core platform and five distinct products. An an example of how we work, when major combat operations started with Iran, we fielded a new product supporting 24/7 operations and 9,000+ users in three months.
How we build is our advantage: we deploy forward with the people who own the mission. Our engineers, product team, and CTO deploy forward to the point of friction, including visiting units in Ukraine. We focus on embedding directly with operational units supporting great power competition with China, combat operations with Iran, and counter-narcotics missions.
At Vannevar, we’re building the next generation of mission software that powers decision-making across the national security, defense, and intelligence communities. Protecting the sensitive data and workflows behind those missions is foundational to our platform. The Security Platform team builds the authentication, authorization, and identity infrastructure that ensures the right people and services have access to the right resources—securely, reliably, and with minimal friction.
In this role, you’ll join a small, cross-functional team to own backend services, authorization engines, and data models. You’ll partner closely with product engineers, compliance and application security teams, forward deployed engineers, and mission users to build identity and access management capabilities that are intuitive, scalable, and deeply integrated into the product experience. This is a high-impact opportunity to shape how Vannevar approaches identity and permissions, build reusable platform capabilities, and enable new customer workflows across our products.
What you’ll do
- Drive implementation, adoption, and ongoing evolution of core platform permission infrastructure and shared services.
- Lead mission-critical projects to build and scale foundational platform auth capabilities.
- Partner closely with engineers across the organization to develop and standardize security platform solutions that address cross-product challenges.
- Collaborate with compliance and Mission stakeholders to define and enforce standards for access control, data protection, and system integrity.
- Influence architecture, technology selection, and engineering standards across the company.
- Grow your engineering skills by solving complex, high-impact problems in security platform and infrastructure systems.
What we’re looking for
- You have 5+ years of backend development experience, including hands on experience building identity and access management systems that other product teams rely on.
- You have strong system design skills and can make thoughtful tradeoffs among performance, reliability, scalability, and cost.
- You have led cross-team technical initiatives spanning multiple systems and driven adoption through influence.
- You bring a security-first mindset and are comfortable operating with high discipline in sensitive environments.
- You communicate complex technical concepts clearly to a broad audience, including engineers, cross-functional partners, and end users.
- U.S. Person status is required, as this role requires access to U.S.-only data systems.
What we offer
The salary range for this position is $150,000 - $215,000 + equity. Within the range, individual pay is determined by experience, relevant education, and/or training.
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Remote friendly with WeWork access
- Unlimited PTO, shared downtime during the federal holiday calendar, and company-wide off time at the end of each year
- 401(k) match
- Lifestyle & wellbeing stipends
- Salary top-up during military reserve duty
- Fully paid parental leave
- Child and pet care reimbursement during travel
We are committed to protecting the privacy of all applicants. Official emails from the company will come from an @vannevarlabs.com domain. Under no circumstances will a legitimate representative from our company contact you to request passwords, financial information, or other sensitive personal data. Please be vigilant of potential scams.
Skills Required
- 5+ years of backend development experience
- Hands-on experience building identity and access management systems used by other product teams
- Strong system design skills, including tradeoffs among performance, reliability, scalability, and cost
- Experience leading cross-team technical initiatives spanning multiple systems and driving adoption through influence
- Security-first mindset and comfort operating with high discipline in sensitive environments
- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to engineers, cross-functional partners, and end users
- U.S. Person status
What the Team is Saying
.jpg)
.jpg)
Vannevar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
-
Healthcare Strength — Healthcare is described as top-tier medical, dental, and vision coverage, with comprehensive support that includes mental-health resources. This area is repeatedly highlighted as one of the strongest parts of the package.
-
Retirement Support — Retirement support includes a 401(k) with company match (100% up to 3%, and 50% from 3–5%), indicating meaningful employer contribution to long-term savings. This structure is prominently emphasized across company materials.
-
Parental & Family Support — Parental leave and family support include fully paid 12-week leave for all new parents plus four extra weeks for new mothers, alongside family-planning assistance and caregiving stipends. Child and pet care reimbursement during required travel further expands coverage for families.
Vannevar Insights
What We Do
Vannevar combines Silicon Valley innovation with former special operators to build AI for real-world national security outcomes. Since our founding in 2019, Vannevar has deployed its technology across 125 missions, safeguarding our service members and improving our country's deterrence. We believe our military service members and intelligence officers deserve access to the best technology American innovation can offer, and we are mobilizing frontier technology for this mission. Our founders have 30 years of combined experience across AI labs, national security strategy, intelligence agencies and special operations. We're supported by a number of leading VCs, including Felicis, DFJ Growth, Point72, Costanoa, and General Catalyst. Vannevar is one of the most capital efficient defense tech companies, reaching early profitability and becoming a defense tech unicorn in 2024.
Why Work With Us
We pride ourselves on being a team of passionate, low-ego professionals who share a commitment to engineering excellence and a genuine concern for the people and AI agents we deliver. Vannevar is a company that truly cares about its people and one of our core principles is "put your wellbeing first".
Gallery
Vannevar Offices
Remote Workspace
Employees work remotely.
We are distributed across the map, but united by the mission. We go where the mission takes us and deliver where others can’t. Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York. You decide what's next.
