Staff Software Engineer - Vanta for Government

At Vanta, our mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust. We believe that security should be monitored and verified continuously, and we empower companies to practice better security and prove it with ease. Vanta has a kind and talented team, and while some have prior security experience, many have been successful at Vanta without it.

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Vanta for Government team, you'll set the technical foundation for Vanta's expansion into the public sector: designing the systems, patterns, and architecture that will power compliance programs from the ground up for government vendors and agencies.

The Vanta for Government team is building and evolving Vanta's AI-powered platform for government vendors, federal agencies, and State, Local, and Education (SLED) organizations. Our mission is to make government compliance not easy, but easier: helping organizations automate the heavy lifting across complex frameworks like FedRAMP, CMMC, and NIST, strengthen their security posture, and support mission-critical work with greater confidence.

You’ll work directly alongside early design partners to shape new capabilities in real time. As the most senior engineer on the team, you'll be the technical anchor through a critical build phase — making the architectural decisions, establishing engineering patterns, and driving the multi-quarter initiatives that will define how Vanta serves government customers at scale.

What you'll do as a Staff Software Engineer at Vanta

• Own the technical strategy and architecture for Vanta's government product line, designing systems that adapt Vanta's core compliance platform to meet the demands of federal agencies, government vendors, and SLED organizations
• Lead the design and build of net-new product capabilities — including core compliance workflow features that don't yet exist in Vanta's product today — working alongside early design partners to validate and iterate as requirements evolve
• Define reusable abstractions and platform patterns that prevent technical debt as the team scales from its first government customers to a broader portfolio of agencies and vendors
• Partner with adjacent engineering teams on shared infrastructure and tagging systems that underpin government-specific compliance workflows, building on existing platform investments rather than starting from scratch
• Drive multi-quarter technical initiatives across engineering, product, and go-to-market, translating ambiguous early-stage requirements into durable, scalable solutions
• Raise the technical bar for a team of mid-level and senior engineers through mentorship, code review, engineering practice-setting, and high-quality technical decision-making

How to be successful in this role

• 10+ years of deep backend engineering experience with a track record of leading complex, multi-quarter technical initiatives in fast-paced, product-focused environments
• Strong systems thinking and platform architecture skills: you design for reuse, scalability, and long-term maintainability, and naturally think in terms of abstractions and patterns
• Experience in highly regulated industries such as fintech or healthcare; FedRAMP or government domain experience is a plus, but not required
• Comfortable operating in early-stage, 0→1 environments where requirements evolve as you learn from customers and technical decisions carry real business consequences
• A strong product mindset: you understand that shipping matters, can prioritize against real deadlines, and balance technical rigor with delivery velocity
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence technical direction across engineering and bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Proven ability to mentor and develop engineers, with a track record of raising team-wide technical quality and building strong engineering culture
• Open to using AI to amplify your skills and strengthen your work - demonstrating curiosity, a willingness to learn, and sound judgment in applying AI responsibly to improve efficiency and impact.