Mission Strategist - San Diego (Clearance Required)

Vannevar · San Diego, California · Other

Posted 2026-10-15

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About the role

We're hiring a forward-deployed Mission Strategist to embed with Navy users in San Diego. San Diego is home to the Navy's rapid capability organizations, and our software is already in use there. This is an in-person role. You will spend most of your week on site with users and working on government networks.

Your job is to find the mission problems that matter most, break them into specific hypotheses, and prove those hypotheses out in our products. Much of that is configuration: building agent workflows, prompts, databases, reports, and alerts on our classified platform, then iterating with users until they hold up in real operations. Some of it is net-new capability that you will scope with our engineers and deliver alongside them.

You will often own a funded prototype end to end. That means running discovery with operators, building the sprint plan with engineering, configuring and testing on the high side, demoing to program leadership, and shaping what the follow-on should be. When you see the next problem worth solving, you will write it up clearly enough that we can decide whether to go after it.

This is not a traditional customer success, solutions, or product role. Some of the work is gritty. Configurations can take hours and many iterations to get right, and problems are often unclear and changing. You will partner closely with our Mission Leads, who own customer relationships and the path to programs of record, and with the engineers building the platform. You will have support from product, engineering, and leadership, but you will decide where to focus and how to maximize mission impact.

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

What you’ll do

Embed with users on watch floors, at schoolhouses, and during fleet exercises. Learn their workflows well enough to see the manual work they've stopped noticing.

Turn ambiguous problems into hypotheses you can test in days, and adjust as you learn.

Configure and prove workflows. Write and tune the prompts, agent workflows, databases, reports, and dashboards that turn a mission problem into a working tool, then validate them against real tasks with real users.

Test and troubleshoot releases on classified networks, and give engineering specific, reproducible feedback.

Run funded prototypes from discovery through final demo, including sprint planning, tracking government dependencies, and reporting status to customers and leadership.

Build demos and concepts quickly to show new user groups what's possible, and get them excited about it.

Partner with Mission Leads and business development on scoping, cost estimates, and follow-on work

What we’re looking for

An active Secret clearance at minimum. TS/SCI preferred.

Based in San Diego or willing to relocate. This role is in person.

Experience using technology to solve hard operational problems, either from building products (product management, engineering) or from fielding new technology in the military.

A track record of creatively scoping ambiguous problems and generating strong hypotheses when the path isn't clear.

Comfort with hands-on technical work. You will rewrite a prompt ten times, dig into why a configuration isn't behaving, and keep going until it works.

Curiosity about agentic AI and how to apply it to real workflows.

High ownership. You take responsibility for outcomes and operate independently.

Clear writing. You can turn a messy week on site into a short update that engineers and leadership can act on.

Professional presence with operators and senior leaders alike

Nice to have

Navy experience, especially in ISR, targeting, maritime operations, or unmanned systems.

Time on a watch floor or in an operations center.

Experience building with LLM-based tools, or light scripting.

What we offer

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

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