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.
Search is at the heart of Vannevar’s flagship platform and agentic workflows. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer, with substantial knowledge and passion for search and information retrieval, to drive innovation in this space. In this role, you will work directly with our ML and product teams to advance a state-of-the-art search system that fundamentally drives our users’ ability to surface mission critical information.
What you'll do- Design and adapt the technical strategy for search within Vannevar’s products, including how we leverage full-text search, vector databases, LLMs, NLP, and relevance algorithms
- Improve both search latency and relevance
- Collaborate with product engineers, designers, and mission strategists to translate user needs into data-informed search innovations
- Research and apply emerging technologies, trends and best practices in the search/information retrieval domain to improve index quality, freshness, and retrieval performance
- You have 7+ years of experience in backend software development, with 3+ years in search, information retrieval, or related fields
- You have a passion for architecting, developing and deploying reliable, scalable, and performant systems
- You have expertise in information retrieval, NLP, and machine learning. You have a deep understanding of concepts like indexing, ranking, query parsing, tokenization, and vector search.
- You have hands-on experience with at least one major search engine (e.g., Elasticsearch, OpenSearch), and familiarity with search evaluation frameworks (e.g., precision, recall, NDCG).
- You have excellent analytical, problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills.
- U.S. Person status is required as this position will require the ability to access U.S. only data systems.
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.
Comprehensive Benefits- 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 backend software development experience
- 3+ years of experience in search, information retrieval, or related fields
- Experience architecting, developing, and deploying reliable, scalable, and performant systems
- Expertise in information retrieval, NLP, and machine learning
- Deep understanding of indexing, ranking, query parsing, tokenization, and vector search
- Hands-on experience with at least one major search engine, such as Elasticsearch or OpenSearch
- Familiarity with search evaluation frameworks, including precision, recall, and NDCG
- Excellent analytical, problem-solving, leadership, and communication skills
- U.S. Person status
What the Team is Saying
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Vannevar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare is considered comprehensive, with top-tier medical, dental, and vision coverage highlighted alongside mental-health support and wellness stipends. These elements are consistently presented as core pillars of the package.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off is framed as generous, featuring unlimited PTO, shared downtime aligned to federal holidays, and a company-wide year-end break. The approach signals an expectation that employees actually disconnect and use their time.
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Parental & Family Support — Parental leave is described as fully paid for 12 weeks for all parents, with an additional 4 weeks for new mothers and flexibility to take leave in blocks over a year. Family-planning assistance, monthly caregiving stipends, and travel-related child/pet care reimbursement extend support beyond leave.
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.
