Mission Lead - Minneapolis (Clearance Required)

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 hiring a forward deployed Mission Lead to embed directly with our Department of War (DOW) customers across the United States. You’ll work as part of a mission-focused team of engineers and other mission leads to deploy software against challenging problems. While this role requires frequent travel, we’re committed to hiring locally and strengthening Vannevar’s presence in communities—like Minnesota—that our team members already call home. You will travel onsite, sit alongside uniformed service members and civilian operators alike. Your job is to earn trust by creating value: understanding what users are trying to accomplish, decomposing ambiguous problems into specific mission hypotheses, testing those hypotheses through workflows in our products, and onboarding users when those workflows prove useful. This is not a traditional customer success, solutions, or product role. Your role is to solve complex and ambiguous problems. You will configure product workflows, test and troubleshoot new releases, triage issues, and work closely with product and engineering to make our products more effective for the people using them in the field. Some of this work will be gritty. Configurations may take hours and multiple iterations each day to get right. Expect complex problems, murky answers, and moving targets – the payoff is work that directly shapes outcomes for our users. You will partner with the Mission team to cultivate relationships with new user groups on site, generate wins with those users, and translate those wins into the stories that help Vannevar sustain and expand deployments. You will be the face of Vannevar for many of our users and customers. You will often operate independently on site. You will have support from product, engineering, mission development, and leadership, but you will be responsible for deciding where to focus and how to maximize mission impact. Roles like this are how we grow outside of traditional defense hubs, investing in innovative environments across America. U.S. Persons status with at least a current Top Secret clearance in required. This is a customer-facing role required to be based in Minneapolis. Work will require time in secure or classified environments and periodic travel.