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.
Secure access is a critical enabler of Vannevar’s mission. We are seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Security Platform team and drive the strategy, execution, and evolution of the systems that govern authentication, authorization, and access management across our products. In this role, you will lead a team responsible for centralized identity and access infrastructure, including IdP integrations, authorization policy frameworks, SSO capabilities, and access management tooling. Working closely with engineering, mission, and product partners, you will build secure-by-default platforms that reduce friction for developers, provide clarity and control for administrators, and ensure end users can access only the resources they are authorized to see.
What you’ll do- Team leadership: Grow and mentor a high-performing team of engineers. Foster a strong engineering culture focused on security, reliability, ownership, and delivering high-impact platform capabilities.
- Strategy and technical direction: Define the roadmap and technical vision for authentication, authorization, and access management capabilities, ensuring Vannevar’s identity platform scales securely and reliably with the business.
- Platform and developer enablement: Lead the development of centralized identity and access services—including IdP integrations, authorization infrastructure, and SSO capabilities—that reduce friction for product teams and enable secure-by-default development.
- Cross-functional execution: Partner with Product, Mission, Infrastructure, and Engineering teams to deliver foundational identity and access capabilities that balance security, usability, and operational excellence.
- Organizational impact: Drive adoption of access control standards, security best practices, and platform capabilities across engineering teams to create a consistent and trustworthy access experience throughout Vannevar.
- Engineering leadership: 3+ years of experience leading and developing high-performing software engineering teams, with a track record of delivering complex technical initiatives and growing engineers.
- Identity and access expertise: Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, access control, and secure system design, with experience building or operating identity, security, or platform infrastructure.
- Distributed systems experience: 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating scalable, reliable distributed systems that serve as critical infrastructure for engineering organizations.
- Product and customer mindset: Demonstrated ability to partner closely with product, engineering, and operational stakeholders to deliver solutions that balance customer needs, business priorities, and technical excellence.
- Judgment and execution: Proven ability to lead through ambiguity and make sound tradeoffs between security, reliability, developer experience, and delivery velocity.
- Communication and influence: Excellent communication skills and a track record of driving alignment across teams, influencing technical direction, and building strong cross-functional partnerships.
- Active security clearance or ability/willingness to obtain one.
- Prior experience building software for defense, national security or intelligence use cases.
- 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
- 3+ years leading and developing high-performing software engineering teams
- 8+ years building and operating scalable, reliable distributed systems
- Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, access control, and secure system design
- Experience building or operating identity, security, or platform infrastructure (IdP integrations, SSO, authorization frameworks)
- Ability to partner with product, engineering, and operational stakeholders to balance security, usability, and delivery
- Excellent communication skills and ability to influence cross-functional teams
- Active security clearance or ability/willingness to obtain one
- Prior experience building software for defense, national security, or intelligence use cases
What the Team is Saying
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Vannevar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
