Mission Lead (Tampa)

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 government customers in Tampa. This is an in-person, on-site role where you will sit with users every day, understand their mission problems, and use Vannevar’s products to solve them.

You will be embedded on a military base with one of our customer groups. 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. You will be forward deployed with access to government systems that most of the company cannot reach. You will configure product workflows, test and troubleshoot new releases, triage issues, and work closely with engineering and product to make our products more effective in the field. Some of this work will be gritty. Configurations may take hours and multiple iterations each day to get right. Problems will often be complex, unclear, and changing. The impact of your work to our users will be high.

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 wins and stories that help Vannevar sustain and expand deployments. You will be the face of Vannevar for many of our Tampa 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.

This is a high-impact, high-stakes role and the first of its kind at Vannevar. It will initially report directly to the CEO.

What you’ll do

• Embed with users. Sit on site every day with customer groups in Tampa and build deep intuition for their mission.
• Build trust. Earn credibility by understanding user problems and helping solve them over time.
• Turn ambiguity into hypotheses. Break complex mission problems into specific workflows that can be tested.
• Configure product workflows. Set up high-value workflows for users through creative, iterative configuration.
• Test and troubleshoot releases. Debug product issues on deployed government systems and work with engineering to resolve them.
• Generate mission wins. Identify what works, onboard users, and translate wins into evidence of impact.
• Develop new user groups. Build relationships with additional teams on site and identify where Vannevar can create value.
• Operate independently. Set priorities on site and push work through without waiting for perfect direction.
• Represent Vannevar. Be the face of the company with Tampa users and customers.

What we’re looking for

• Active TS/SCI clearance.
• This role is in person in Tampa. You will need to be based in Tampa or willing to relocate there.
• Comfort in the field. You can build trust with users in operational environments.
• High ownership. You take responsibility for outcomes and operate independently.
• Grit and persistence. You work through ambiguity, iteration, and friction until you get to impact.
• Strong mission judgment. You can identify which user problems matter and where product can create value.
• Product intuition. You understand how software products create value for users.
• Technical intuition. You can reason about how software systems work, break, and improve.
• Curiosity about agentic AI. You are excited to understand, configure, and apply AI-enabled systems.
• Professional presence. You can represent Vannevar well in high-stakes customer environments.

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.