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.
We’re looking for a senior engineer to lead the development of new Cyber products in support of national security missions. This is a 0→1 builder role - taking a product from concept to operational deployment while working directly with end users and shaping both the product and the problem space.
You’ll own our flagship Cyber product, Cyber Recon - an external attack surface management platform built for cyber operators. This is not a traditional forward-deployed role, but it requires the same level of mission ownership, user empathy, and execution velocity - applied to building a durable product.
What you’ll do
- Own end-to-end development of Cyber Recon and adjacent products (backend systems, data pipelines, and user-facing applications)
- Build intuitive, high-performance interfaces for exploring and acting on complex cyber data
- Work directly with users in mission environments to understand needs, iterate quickly, and deploy into real environments
- Design systems to ingest, normalize, and analyze large-scale external attack surface data
- Translate ambiguous problems into concrete product and engineering decisions
- Drive product and technical direction for Cyber
- Deploy and support software in secure, constrained environments
- Travel 2-3 times per month to customer sites (primarily East Coast)
What we value
- 10+ years building and shipping production software systems
- Strong full-stack skills (backend systems, APIs, data modeling, modern frontend)
- Comfortable moving between frontend, backend, and product decisions on a daily basis
- Experience building user-facing products with strong usability and performance
- Experience operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with high ownership
- Experience building cybersecurity products or conducting cyber operations in government environments
- Familiarity with external attack surface management, internet-scale data collection, or adversary infrastructure analysis
- Prior experience working with classified systems or secure deployments
- Currently holds or previously held a CI Polygraph (preferred); ability and willingness to obtain a CI Polygraph required
- 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.
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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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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.
