Mission Lead - San Diego (Clearance Required)

The role

Mission Leads lead engagements with government stakeholders to identify mission problems and shape deployments. You will translate mission needs into technical narratives and coordinate across functional teams to deliver and scale.

What you will do

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with stakeholders across Navy program offices, PAEs, SYSCOMs, warfare centers, and operational commands.
• Identify and develop new mission opportunities by understanding capability gaps, operational requirements, and acquisition priorities.
• Lead customer-facing engagements including mission discovery, capability demonstrations, and strategic account planning.
• Serve as the primary customer-facing owner for Navy mission and program engagements.
• Translate operational challenges and technical requirements into actionable solutions.
• Partner with government program managers, engineers, operators, and acquisition professionals.
• Help customers navigate Navy acquisition, budgeting, requirements, experimentation, and transition pathways.
• Support operational demonstrations, exercises, prototypes, and field deployments.
• Collaborate with internal product, engineering, and mission teams.
• Represent Vannevar at Navy industry events, technical exchanges, exercises, and conferences.

Required qualifications

• U.S. Persons status
• Current Top Secret clearance
• 5+ years of experience supporting the Department of the Navy, defense acquisition, government technology, or national security programs.
• Experience working within or alongside Navy program offices, PEOs, SYSCOMs, warfare centers, or operational commands.
• Experience with defense acquisition, capability development, requirements generation, program management, systems engineering, or technical program execution.
• Familiarity with Navy budgeting, acquisition, experimentation, and transition pathways.
• Strong technical intuition and ability to engage with engineers, operators, acquisition professionals, and senior government leaders.
• Experience leading customer engagements involving complex technical systems, software platforms, or operational capabilities.
• Ability to build trust, influence stakeholders, and drive outcomes across large government organizations.
• Ability to operate independently in ambiguous environments.
• Willingness to travel frequently.

Nice to have

• A track record of transitioning new technologies from experimentation, prototyping, or operational evaluation into funded programs of record.
• Experience serving as a translator between operators, acquisition professionals, engineers, and senior leaders.
• Technical fluency combined with strong mission instincts, including experience evaluating, deploying, or advocating for software-enabled capabilities in operational environments.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 100% remote first culture
• WeWork access for all full time employees
• Unlimited PTO including competitive vacation and holiday schedules
• Monthly mental health, wellness & fitness stipend
• In-home office setup stipend
• Family planning assistance
• Salary top-up during military reserve duty
• Fully paid parental leave
• Child and pet care reimbursement during travel

About the company

Vannevar builds AI systems for the Department of War's most consequential missions. They deploy forward with the people who own the mission.