Mission Lead - Economic Security (Clearance Required)

Posted Yesterday
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Washington, DC, USA
In-Office
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Machine Learning • Software • Defense
Vannevar builds AI systems to solve America's hardest national security challenges.
The Role
Own and expand economic security deployments across government, foreign partner, and commercial customers. Identify mission problems, develop product-market-fit theses, lead tailored demonstrations, secure trials, convert engagements into revenue-generating deployments, and grow user adoption. Partner with Product and Engineering on requirements while navigating government budgets, contracting vehicles, classified environments, and senior stakeholder relationships.
Summary Generated by Built In

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.

About the role

We’re hiring a Mission Lead to build and grow Vannevar’s work in economic security. You’ll own a portfolio of deployments across the U.S. government, foreign partner governments, and commercial sector, working on missions focused on protecting critical technologies and supply chains, strengthening industrial capacity, and countering adversary economic activity.

Your job is to find hard, important problems where Vannevar’s technology can make a difference—and turn those problems into deployments. You’ll develop hypotheses about customer needs, identify the workflows behind them, and build a clear point of view on why Vannevar can solve those problems better than existing tools or commercial alternatives. From there, you’ll find the right users, get our technology in their hands, prove value, and turn successful trials into sustained, revenue-generating deployments.

This is not a traditional business development, customer success, or solutions role. You won’t be handed a mature market, a defined customer set, or a playbook to follow. You’ll be expected to develop your own thesis about where we should focus, conduct the research to become credible in the mission, and build highly tailored demonstrations and technical narratives for everyone from working-level users to senior executives.

You’ll own your customer relationships end to end. That means earning trust with users, expanding into adjacent mission groups, and finding ways to grow deployments once we’ve proven value. You’ll also work closely with Product, Engineering, and forward-deployed engineers to translate what you learn in the field into product, collection, and security requirements.

U.S. Persons status with at least a current Top Secret clearance in required. This is a customer-facing role required to be based in Washington, D.C. Work will require time in secure or classified environments and periodic travel.

What you’ll do
  • Own a portfolio of economic security deployments. Serve as the primary relationship owner for a set of customers working economic security missions, spanning the U.S. government, foreign partner governments, and in the commercial sector. This requires an intuitive understanding of adversary activities and the missions aimed at securing critical technologies, supply chains, and strengthening industrial capacity.
  • Develop hypotheses about mission problems and convert these into deployments. Identify new customer groups and develop strategies to land engagements, initiate trials, and advance the engagement into revenue-generating deployments.
  • Build and defend a product-market-fit thesis. For each account, name the specific mission problem, connect it to a concrete workflow, and show the customer how and why Vannevar’s technology solves it in a way the customer's current tools, and other commercial alternatives, cannot.
  • Develop and deliver technical narratives with senior stakeholders. Conduct deep research to understand customer mission needs, and translate that knowledge to develop credible technical narratives and hyper-tailored technology demonstrations and briefings for working level to executive customers.
  • Sustain and expand fielded user groups. Establish engagement techniques (e.g. syncs, push updates, in-person engagements) to grow user numbers and expand across adjacent mission groups.
  • Partner cross-functionally. Work with Product, Engineering, and forward-deployed engineers to scope development, collection, and security requirements requirements against customer needs, and keep account knowledge current for the team.
  • Exercise sound judgment in ambiguous, still-forming environments. Operate independently inside organizations whose structure or mission may not be finalized yet, knowing when to move fast and when to socialize a new thesis internally before acting externally.
  • Navigate programmatic and contracting realities. Develop an understanding of budget cycles and contracting vehicles to create and exploit opportunities for new deployments. Work directly with government contracting officers to translate customer demand into revenue-generating deployments.
What we’re looking for
  • 5+ years owning outcomes in complex, ambiguous government, defense, or intelligence community environments
  • Prior national security experience relevant strategic and economic competition. In other words, you understand the missions, customer needs, and opportunities, because you've lived them
  • Deep curiosity and interest in working with leading-edge software: you enjoy working with new technology, understanding how it works, and developing new techniques/applications to solve tough national security missions.
  • Conceptual thinking skills: you can synthesize and connect data points about the mission, customer requirements, and technological capabilities into ideas for new missions, expansion, and products.
  • Strong product-market-fit instincts: you can describe a specific mission problem, connect it to a concrete software workflow, and articulate why our technology solves it in a way current tools do not
  • High level of comfort operating with high autonomy in ambiguous, still-forming organizations: you can take minimal guidance and work with minimal supervision to achieve concrete outcomes.
  • Sufficient technical fluency to partner credibly with Product and Engineering without overclaiming capability or deployment status
  • Sound judgment about when to move fast, when to socialize a new thesis internally, and how to engage and communicate internally and externally
What we offer
We’re proud to offer competitive benefits that support our employees. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:
  • 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
Vannevar is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, protected veteran status, or disability status.
 
We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply, even if you don't feel like you're a perfect fit. If you're passionate about contributing to our mission, we'd love to hear from you!
 
IMPORTANT NOTICE
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 owning outcomes in complex, ambiguous government, defense, or intelligence community environments
  • Prior national security experience relevant to strategic and economic competition
  • Deep interest in leading-edge software and applying technology to national security missions
  • Strong conceptual thinking and ability to connect mission needs, customer requirements, and technology capabilities
  • Strong product-market-fit judgment and ability to connect mission problems to software workflows
  • High autonomy and comfort operating in ambiguous, developing organizations
  • Sufficient technical fluency to partner credibly with Product and Engineering
  • Sound judgment in internal and external communication and decision-making
  • U.S. person status
  • Current Top Secret security clearance
  • Ability to be based in Washington, D.C.
  • Ability to work in secure or classified environments
  • Availability for periodic travel

What the Team is Saying

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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.

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The Company
Arlington, Virginia
225 Employees
Year Founded: 2019

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

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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.

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