Senior AI Developer
$140,000–$190,000 year
On-siteMcLean, Virginia, United States
Job Summary
Design end-to-end AI solutions including LLM-powered applications, predictive ML models, multi-agent workflows, and RAG pipelines. Integrate models with enterprise systems, APIs, and vector databases to deliver scalable mission capabilities. Drive iterative experimentation, prototyping, and model improvement cycles while designing advanced prompt strategies and orchestration logic. Build reusable AI components, libraries, and APIs that streamline application development. Implement secure-by-design practices including safety guardrails, input sanitization, and evaluation metrics. Mentor junior developers, conduct code reviews, and stay current with emerging AI techniques and agent frameworks. Collaborate closely with product teams, designers, and mission stakeholders to translate user needs into intuitive features.
Required Qualifications
- Ability to hold a position of public trust with the U.S. government
- Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, or a related field
- 5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience
- at least 2+ years focused on AI/ML, generative AI, or LLM-driven application development
- Strong proficiency in Python and modern AI frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar
- Demonstrated ability to design and develop production-grade AI applications, including APIs, back-end services, orchestration logic, and front-end integrations (when needed)
- Experience implementing RAG architectures, embeddings, vector stores, and context retrieval patterns
- Familiarity with multi-agent orchestration frameworks, prompt engineering strategies, and advanced LLM interaction design
- Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), including compute, serverless services, and security fundamentals for AI workloads
- Working knowledge of containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines for AI-based systems
- Experience with structured and unstructured data, document processing, and application integration with existing enterprise systems
- Understanding of responsible AI principles including safety, fairness, privacy, and model risk mitigation
- Strong analytical and communication skills with the ability to collaborate across engineering, design, and mission domains
- Proven experience mentoring teammates and raising the technical bar of development teams
Desired Qualifications
- Local to the Washington, DC metro area preferred
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