Senior Search Engineer

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.

Search is at the heart of Vannevar’s flagship product, Decrypt, and the number of business-critical use cases is growing as we expand into new products. We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer, with substantial knowledge and passion for search & information retrieval, to drive innovation in this space. In this role, you will work directly with our ML team to advance a state-of-the-art search system that fundamentally drives our users’ ability to surface mission critical information.  

This is a fully remote role based in the United States. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or otherwise authorized to work in the U.S., as this position requires access to U.S.-only data systems.

What You’ll Do 

• Help craft a technical strategy for search at Vannevar, including how we leverage full-text search, vector databases, LLMs, NLP, and relevance algorithms 
• Improve both search latency and relevance  
• Partner with other engineers, product managers, and designers to identify and quickly deliver customer value 
• Stay up to date with emerging technologies, trends, and best practices; particularly within the search/information retrieval domain 

Qualifications 

• Proven experience in software development – you have worked on business-critical systems that are deployed in production environments 
• You’ve successfully led the design or architecture of new and existing system(s), ideally within the search/information-retrieval domain 
• You have proficiency and experience working with search technologies, such as Lucene, Elasticsearch, Vector Databases, NLP and LLMs 
• Strong leadership, teamwork, and communication skills 
• U.S. Person status is required as this position will require the ability to access U.S. only data systems 

The salary range for this position is $150,000 - $215,000 + equity + 401K match. Within the range, individual pay is determined by experience, relevant education, and/or training.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance
• 100% remote first culture. You can work from anywhere in the US and all full time employees have WeWork access
• Unlimited PTO including competitive vacation and holiday schedules
• Lifestyle stipends - Monthly mental health, wellness & fitness stipend, in-home office setup stipend and family planning assistance
• Salary top-up during military reserve duty
• Fully paid parental leave
• Child and pet care reimbursement during travel