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.
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 and own work across the stack—from frontend permission-management interfaces to backend services, authorization engines, and data models. You’ll partner closely with product engineers, designers, compliance and application security teams, forward deployed engineers, and mission users to build security 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
- Build and scale Vannevar’s centralized authentication and authorization platform, including tenant isolation across customer environments—from development through classified deployments.
- Own the internal self-service platform for user, group, and permission management; partner with Design to deliver intuitive administrative experiences for developers and mission teams.
- Build tooling and visualizations that help developers, administrators, and mission users understand and validate access permissions.
- Own and evolve Vannevar’s platform management interfaces, including the feature flag system, to support new products and customer needs.
- Partner with product engineering teams to build shared authorization and resource-sharing capabilities across the platform.
- Shape the long-term roadmap for the Security Platform team by driving scalable platform capabilities and improving the developer experience.
What we’re looking for
- 7+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong track record of designing, building, and operating scalable backend systems, and delivering full-stack features from conception through production.
- Strong backend expertise, including proficiency in one or more modern backend languages (e.g., Python, Java), experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL), distributed systems, and API design.
- Comfortable owning end-to-end development, including frontend work (e.g., React/TypeScript/Node.js) when needed, with a focus on delivering polished, customer-facing experiences rather than specializing exclusively in backend infrastructure.
- Strong product intuition, with the ability to make pragmatic technical decisions, balance user needs with engineering tradeoffs, and thrive in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
- Experience with identity and authentication concepts and platforms, including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect (OIDC), SAML, JWTs, session management, RBAC/ABAC, SSO, Keycloak, OpenFGA, or other authentication and authorization systems.
- Excellent cross-functional collaboration and communication skills, with experience partnering closely with product, design, security, and infrastructure teams, driving technical direction, and aligning stakeholders through ambiguity.
- Nice to have
- Active Security clearance or ability to obtain one and desire to travel to visit users, collect feedback, and debug issues
- Prior experience working in a user-facing product role
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
- 7+ years of software engineering experience
- Proficiency in backend languages (e.g., Python, Java)
- Experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL)
- Experience designing and operating distributed systems and APIs
- Ability to own end-to-end development including frontend (React/TypeScript/Node.js)
- Experience with identity and authentication concepts (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, JWTs, session management, SSO)
- Experience with authorization models and tooling (RBAC/ABAC, OpenFGA, Keycloak)
- Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills
- Strong product intuition and pragmatic decision-making in ambiguous environments
- Active security clearance or ability to obtain one; willingness to travel
- Prior experience in user-facing product roles
What the Team is Saying
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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.
