Vannevar is a defense technology company building AI to deter our adversaries. In the 21st century, conflict moves at algorithmic speed and foresight equals firepower. Our agentic AI is purpose-built to compete with China—from cross-Strait conflict to gray zone coercion. Trained on the most mission-relevant datasets in defense, our technology models adversary behavior, simulates campaigns, and recommends the best course of action to decision makers. Our AI systems are some of the most trusted in the industry and actively used on the front lines of the Indo-Pacific to keep the peace and save lives.
Exceptional technology starts with exceptional people. Vannevar is a small agile team combining world-class engineers with veteran strategists who bring deep expertise in defense and tradecraft. We’re building a company defined by mission impact, user empathy, and disciplined growth. In just three years, we grew from $3M to $80M in ARR, achieved early profitability, and reached unicorn status—proving that disruption doesn’t require an ego, and staying power doesn’t mean standing still.
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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Parental & Family Support — Fully paid parental leave (12 weeks for all new parents, plus additional time for birth mothers), fertility support, childcare benefits, and caregiving stipends are highlighted. Flexibility to split leave and reimbursement for child/pet care during work travel reinforce a family‑friendly design.
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Retirement Support — A tiered 401(k) match—fully matching initial contributions and partially matching the next band—is publicly detailed and reiterated in job materials. This provides predictable employer support for long‑term savings.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Stock options are included, and employer‑verified materials describe internal liquidity events enabling some pre‑IPO share sales. This can help employees realize value from equity earlier in the company lifecycle.
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.
