Staff Technical Product Manager

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 Staff Technical Product Manager to lead definition and evolution of foundational platform capabilities spanning multiple engineering organizations. This role reports directly to the CTO and operates at the system level - shaping the structures and primitives that underpin our products rather than managing feature-level roadmaps.

You will own problems that cross organizational boundaries and cannot be solved within a single team. The objective of this role is improving structural coherence across the platform - defining durable system structures and primitives, aligning stakeholders, and ensuring they translate into real capability.

Operating in close partnership with engineering leadership, this role progressively assumes independent ownership of convergence and cross-organizational decision resolution. Execution coordination is part of the role, but performance is measured by durable system improvement and structural convergence.

Example problem spaces include:

Authorization and policy models

Identity and ownership boundaries

Data access structures

Platform abstractions and shared primitives

What you’ll do

Define and evolve cross-platform system primitives and structures, translating mission and product needs into durable system behaviors and producing artifacts that clarify system intent (PRDs, specs, evaluation criteria)

Drive resolution of structural problems spanning multiple engineering organizations

Build alignment across engineering leadership, design, and mission stakeholders

Maintain convergence momentum across teams implementing shared capabilities

Partner with Engineering Managers to translate structural intent into execution plans and hold convergence through delivery

Stay engaged through delivery to ensure implementations converge on intended outcomes

Identify architectural divergence early and drive corrective action

Identify and drive resolution of cross-team dependencies arising from shared platform primitives and structural initiatives

What we’re looking for

Experience operating at Staff level in TPM, product architecture, or engineer-to-PM hybrid roles

Strong systems reasoning across distributed systems, identity/authorization, or platform architecture

Demonstrated success shaping technical direction across multiple teams

Demonstrated ability to drive cross-organizational technical initiatives through to outcome - articulating tradeoffs, aligning stakeholders, and landing durable decisions

Credible communicator able to influence senior engineers and technical leadership across domains without relying on formal authority structures

High ownership mindset in ambiguous environments

Outstanding driver and communicator who identifies structural risks early - such as unclear ownership, missing definitions, or weak execution setup - and intervenes to correct course

Nice to have

Background in platform, infrastructure, or security domains

Experience with policy or authorization systems

Multi-tenant or regulated environment exposure

Experience operating in environments with decentralized ownership or competing platform abstractions

What we offer

Comprehensive Benefits

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.