Vannevar labs

Mission Lead (Clearance Required)

Vannevar labs$150K — $170K *
Aerospace & Defense
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 6+ years experience managing outcomes in complex customer environments like defense or intelligence.
  • Proven track record of leading cross-functional teams with minimal guidance.
  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills for distilling complex information into actionable plans.
  • Ability to connect mission challenges with software solutions and measurable results.
  • Technical fluency to collaborate effectively with Product and Engineering teams.
  • Strong planning and stakeholder management skills for operational excellence.

Responsibilities

  • Lead customer engagements to build trust and understand mission needs.
  • Translate mission requirements into actionable plans and measurable outcomes.
  • Define objectives and timelines to scale pilot projects into sustained programs.
  • Develop clear technical narratives linking capabilities to mission requirements.
  • Facilitate regular communication and updates with customers and internal stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure alignment on delivery plans.
  • Assist stakeholders in navigating project requirements, budgets, and contracting processes.

Benefits

  • Health, dental, and vision insurance.
  • Remote friendly with WeWork access.
  • Unlimited PTO and shared downtime during federal holidays, plus company-wide time off at year-end.
  • 401(k) match to support retirement planning.
  • Lifestyle and wellbeing stipends for personal development.
  • Salary top-up during military reserve duty for active personnel.
  • Fully paid parental leave to support family needs.
  • Reimbursement for child and pet care during travel.
Full Job Description
About the role

Mission Leads are customer-facing owners of mission outcomes. You will lead engagements with government stakeholders to identify high-value mission problems, shape pilots and deployments, and turn demonstrated mission value into durable, funded programs.

This role blends mission credibility with strong execution and technical intuition. You will operate with high autonomy in ambiguous environments, translate mission needs into clear technical narratives, and coordinate across functional teams (Product, Engineering, Mission, Security, and Operations) to deliver and scale.

U.S. Persons status with at least a current Top Secret US DoD or IC clearance is required.This is a customer-facing role required to be based in Oahu. Work will likely require time in secure or classified environments and periodic travel.

What you'll do
  • Lead mission engagements. Build trusted relationships with operational, technical, and leadership stakeholders to understand mission needs, constraints, and success criteria.
  • Translate mission problems into plans. Turn mission needs into clear problem statements, requirements, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
  • Shape pilots and pathways to scale. Define objectives, timelines, and adoption plans that convert early wins into sustained programs.
  • Communicate the "why" and the "how." Create crisp technical narratives that map our agent-based capabilities to mission requirements and operational constraints.
  • Run the operating cadence. Lead weekly customer syncs, internal standups, executive updates/QBRs, action-item tracking, and risk reviews, as applicable.
  • Coordinate cross-functional delivery. Partner closely with Product and Engineering to ensure mission context is reflected in scope, tradeoffs, and delivery plans.
  • Navigate program realities. Help stakeholders work through requirements development, budgeting cycles, contracting pathways, and coordination across organizations.
  • Enable adoption. Coordinate onboarding, training, and customer success so the customer can use and sustain the capability.
  • Maintain durable account knowledge. Keep high-signal documentation in Notion: stakeholders, org charts, use cases, timelines, deliverables, decisions, and lessons learned.
  • Support expansion. Identify adjacent use cases and partner with Account teams where applicable.


What we're looking for
  • 6+ years owning outcomes in complex customer environments (defense, intelligence, public sector, or similarly regulated domains)
  • Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functionally without consistent guidance
  • Strong written and verbal communication; able to synthesize ambiguity into clear plans and execution
  • Ability to scope and articulate a solution credibly: connect mission problems to software capabilities and measurable outcomes
  • Sufficient technical fluency to partner effectively with Product and Engineering and translate complex concepts into mission-relevant narratives
  • Strong operational skills: planning, prioritization, stakeholder management, and follow-through


What we value
  • Experience with deployments or fielding in secure/regulated environments (e.g., ATO/IL environments, classified workflows, compliance constraints)
  • Experience navigating within programs (requirements, budgets, authorities, timelines, contracting pathways)
  • Deep expertise in a specific mission or technical domain (e.g., cyber, information warfare, ISR, networks, operations, warfare systems/command and control)
  • Experience running executive-level customer updates (QBRs, steering committees)


What we offer

The salary range for this position is $150,000 - $170,000 + equity. Within the range, individual pay is determined by experience, relevant education, and/or training.

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

About Vannevar labs

Vannevar Labs is an artificial intelligence research company that focuses on developing advanced machine learning algorithms. The company was founded in 2017 and has raised $4 million in funding to date. Vannevar Labs' algorithms are designed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of natural language processing, computer vision, and other AI applications. The company's mission is to advance the state of the art in AI and make it more accessible to businesses and organizations.
Learn more about Vannevar labs
Size
10 employees
Industry
Founded
2019

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