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.
This Mission Strategist role would be embedded in our Sensing Business Unit (BU), Vannevar’s pioneering bet into hardware technology. This team works on our most ambitious product and customer deployments and is about partnering with user groups to scope and deliver high mission impact outcomes while partnering with engineering and other teams internally. You will become an expert on scoping mission problems for RF and EW mission sets and will define and iterate on our solution to these problems using our products, your creativity, and partnership with engineering.
What you'll do- Identify important mission problems with users that we can reasonably solve with Vannevar’s products or new product development. You will continuously adjust your hypotheses based on new information.
- Solve these problems and generate meaningful mission outcomes. This involves embedding with the user groups, becoming a domain expert on the mission problem, and using your creativity, our current products, and sometimes developing new products with the engineering team.
- Develop a thesis for a broader program that extends the work you do to other groups and develop a compelling mission pitch that ties to the program, including compelling demos.
- Help our business development team win program deals by partnering with them, traveling to customers, and getting those customers irrationally excited about the mission impact we can have.
- High interest and aptitude for the EW mission set (Drones, Sensors, SDRs)
- A track record of creatively scoping ambiguous problems with the ability to generate strong hypotheses when faced with ambiguity – can be national security or general private sector experience.
- Grit and creativity to keep going when faced with a roadblock.
- Success in working problems to conclusion and trying different approaches until one works.
- Ability to work autonomously and set your own goals
- Ability to quickly learn new software products to generate outcomes.
- Demonstrated bias towards achieving an outcome even if it requires helping or doing the job of someone else on another team.
- Experience helping to iterate on a product with product design, product management and/or engineering teams is a plus but not needed
- Active TS / SCI Clearance is a plus but not needed
- This role can be fully remote, but New York or Seattle is a plus
The salary range for this position is $120,000-$200,000 + equity + 401K match. Within the range, individual pay is determined by experience, relevant education, and/or training.
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- 100% remote first culture. You can work from anywhere in the US and all full time employees have WeWork access
- Unlimited PTO including competitive vacation and holiday schedules
- Lifestyle stipends - Monthly mental health, wellness & fitness stipend, in-home office setup stipend and family planning assistance
- Salary top-up during military reserve duty
- Fully paid parental leave
- Child and pet care reimbursement during travel
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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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