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.
About the role
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
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.
