Vannevar Labs
1 open Forward Deployed Engineer role at Vannevar Labs. Curated with comp bands.
Comp on the board: $150K–$215K.
On the board since Jul 2026 · still hiring
Our take
Why Vannevar Labs
A defense-AI unicorn hiding in plain sight — where the FDE is a mission team's field CTO and the real moat is the TS/SCI clearance.
- FDE type
- True forward-deployed
- Travel
- High
- Comp
- Competitive
- Stage
- Late-stage
A good fit if you're…
- Cleared engineers (TS/SCI) who want mission-driven work
- People comfortable with 40–50% travel and classified spaces
- Those who value scarcity leverage over frontier-lab comp
What they do
Vannevar Labs builds agentic software for national-security missions and has gone from $3M to $80M ARR in three years — profitable, and a unicorn most of the tech world outside the Beltway has never heard of.
What “forward deployed” means here
The FDE is the technical lead / field 'CTO' for a customer engagement, owning architecture, development, deployment and fielding as a hands-on IC. It requires a current TS/SCI DoD or IC clearance and U.S. Persons status, DC-based, with time in classified spaces — the clearance is as load-bearing as the code.
Comp & leveling
The board shows $150K–$215K plus equity — competitive rather than generous, which is the point: with a TS/SCI-cleared candidate pool this tiny, the band reflects scarcity leverage the candidate holds, not the company's ceiling.
Growth signals
Profitable, unicorn, and 25x ARR growth in three years is about as strong a trajectory as private defense tech shows. The clearance gate keeps the seat rare and the equity meaningful.
Analysis updated 2026-09-19
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