Mission Lead - Economic Security (Clearance Required)

Vannevar Labs; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Remote friendly with WeWork access

Unlimited PTO and federal holiday down

401(k) match

Salary top-up during military reserve

Fully paid parental leave

Child and pet care reimbursement

Job summary

Vannevar Labs is seeking a Mission Lead to grow our economic security work across US government, international partners, and commercial sectors. You will own deployments, develop client-specific hypotheses, and translate field learnings into product and security requirements.

You will work with Product and Engineering to craft credible demonstrations and executive briefings, building trusted relationships and expanding deployments based on demonstrated value.

Qualifications

• 5+ years owning outcomes in complex, ambiguous government, defense, or intelligence environments.
• National security experience relevant to strategic and economic competition.
• Curiosity for working with leading-edge software and technology.
• Ability to synthesize data into mission-focused ideas and actions.
• Strong instincts for product-market fit in government contexts.
• Comfort operating with high autonomy in evolving organizations.
• Technical fluency to partner credibly with product and engineering.
• Sound judgment on when to move fast or socialize a thesis internally.

Responsibilities

• Own a portfolio of economic security deployments.
• Develop hypotheses about mission problems and convert these into deployments.
• Build and defend a product-market-fit thesis.
• Develop and deliver technical narratives for senior stakeholders.
• Sustain and expand fielded user groups.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and forward-deployed engineers.
• Exercise sound judgment in ambiguous environments.
• Navigate contracting realities with government officers.

Skills

Govt/IC experience

National security

Technical curiosity

Conceptual thinking

PMF instincts

Autonomy

Technical fluency

Strategic judgment

Tools

None

Job description

Mission Lead - Economic Security (Clearance Required)

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

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.

About the role

We’re hiring a Mission Lead to build and grow Vannevar’s work in economic security. You’ll own a portfolio of deployments across the U.S. government, foreign partner governments, and commercial sector, working on missions focused on protecting critical technologies and supply chains, strengthening industrial capacity, and countering adversary economic activity.

Your job is to find hard, important problems where Vannevar’s technology can make a difference—and turn those problems into deployments. You’ll develop hypotheses about customer needs, identify the workflows behind them, and build a clear point of view on why Vannevar can solve those problems better than existing tools or commercial alternatives. From there, you’ll find the right users, get our technology in their hands, prove value, and turn successful trials into sustained, revenue-generating deployments.

This is not a traditional business development, customer success, or solutions role. You won’t be handed a mature market, a defined customer set, or a playbook to follow. You’ll be expected to develop your own thesis about where we should focus, conduct the research to become credible in the mission, and build highly tailored demonstrations and technical narratives for everyone from working-level users to senior executives.

You’ll own your customer relationships end to end. That means earning trust with users, expanding into adjacent mission groups, and finding ways to grow deployments once we’ve proven value. You’ll also work closely with Product, Engineering, and forward-deployed engineers to translate what you learn in the field into product, collection, and security requirements.

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 Washington, D.C. Work will require time in secure or classified environments and periodic travel.

What you’ll do

• Own a portfolio of economic security deployments. Serve as the primary relationship owner for a set of customers working economic security missions, spanning the U.S. government, foreign partner governments, and in the commercial sector. This requires an intuitive understanding of adversary activities and the missions aimed at securing critical technologies, supply chains, and strengthening industrial capacity.
• Develop hypotheses about mission problems and convert these into deployments. Identify new customer groups and develop strategies to land engagements, initiate trials, and advance the engagement into revenue-generating deployments.
• Build and defend a product-market-fit thesis. For each account, name the specific mission problem, connect it to a concrete workflow, and show the customer how and why Vannevar’s technology solves it in a way the customer's current tools, and other commercial alternatives, cannot.
• Develop and deliver technical narratives with senior stakeholders. Conduct deep research to understand customer mission needs, and translate that knowledge to develop credible technical narratives and hyper-tailored technology demonstrations and briefings for working level to executive customers.
• Sustain and expand fielded user groups. Establish engagement techniques (e.g. syncs, push updates, in-person engagements) to grow user numbers and expand across adjacent mission groups.
• Partner cross-functionally. Work with Product, Engineering, and forward-deployed engineers to scope development, collection, and security requirements requirements against customer needs, and keep account knowledge current for the team.
• Exercise sound judgment in ambiguous, still-forming environments. Operate independently inside organizations whose structure or mission may not be finalized yet, knowing when to move fast and when to socialize a new thesis internally before acting externally.
• Navigate programmatic and contracting realities. Develop an understanding of budget cycles and contracting vehicles to create and exploit opportunities for new deployments. Work directly with government contracting officers to translate customer demand into revenue-generating deployments.

What we’re looking for

• 5+ years owning outcomes in complex, ambiguous government, defense, or intelligence community environments
• Prior national security experience relevant strategic and economic competition. In other words, you understand the missions, customer needs, and opportunities, because you've lived them
• Deep curiosity and interest in working with leading-edge software: you enjoy working with new technology, understanding how it works, and developing new techniques/applications to solve tough national security missions.
• Conceptual thinking skills: you can synthesize and connect data points about the mission, customer requirements, and technological capabilities into ideas for new missions, expansion, and products.
• Strong product-market-fit instincts: you can describe a specific mission problem, connect it to a concrete software workflow, and articulate why our technology solves it in a way current tools do not
• High level of comfort operating with high autonomy in ambiguous, still-forming organizations: you can take minimal guidance and work with minimal supervision to achieve concrete outcomes.
• Sufficient technical fluency to partner credibly with Product and Engineering without overclaiming capability or deployment status
• Sound judgment about when to move fast, when to socialize a new thesis internally, and how to engage and communicate internally and externally

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
• 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.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about ITAR here.

As set forth in Vannevar’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.