Mission Lead - Minneapolis (Clearance Required)

Vannevar Labs; Minneapolis (MN); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Remote-friendly with WeWork access

Unlimited PTO

401(k) match

Parental leave

Job summary

Vannevar Labs in Minneapolis, MN is seeking a Mission Lead to embed with Department of War customers across the United States. The role requires extensive field work, travel, and the ability to translate ambiguous problems into actionable workflows within our mission-focused product teams.

You will sit on-site with users, configure complex workflows, test releases, and push for direct, measurable mission impact while maintaining trust in high-stakes environments.

Qualifications

• U.S. Persons with at least a current Top Secret clearance required.
• Willingness to travel ~75% across the United States.
• Ability to work on-site with DOW customers in field environments.

Responsibilities

• Embed with DOW users on site to build deep mission intuition.
• Configure product workflows and test releases for deployed systems.
• Triage issues and work with product/engineering to improve effectiveness.
• Generate mission wins and translate them into evidence of impact.
• Represent Vannevar to customers and build trusted relationships.

Skills

TS clearance

Travel readiness

On-site stakeholder engagement

Job description

Mission Lead - Minneapolis (Clearance Required)

Mission Development Minneapolis, Minnesota, 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.

We’rehiring a forward deployed MissionLeadto embed directly with our Department of War (DOW) customersacross the United States.You’llwork as part of a mission-focused team of engineers and other missionleads to deploy software againstchallenging problems. While this role requires frequent travel,we’recommitted 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 andambiguousproblems.You will configure product workflows, test and troubleshoot new releases, triage issues, and work closely withproduct andengineering to make our products more effectivefor the people using themin 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 Vannevarsustain and expand deployments. You will be the face of Vannevar for many of ourusers and customers.

You will oftenoperateindependently on site. You will have support from product, engineering, mission development, and leadership, but you willbe responsible fordeciding 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.

• Embed with users. Sit on site with DOW customer groups 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 DOW 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 DOW users and customers.
• Active TS clearance.
• This role is based in Minnesota , and includes about 75% time travel out-of-state to sit side-by-side with users across the United States.
• 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.
• Technical intuition. You can reason about how software systems, work, break, and how to improve them, creating real value for users .
• Curiosity about agentic AI. You are excited to understand, configure, and apply AI-enabled systems to create mission impact for the warfighter .
• Professional presence. You show up in high-stakes government environments as a trusted technical partner—not a vendor.

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