AI/ML Engineer

About the role

This is a highly hands-on role for an engineer who wants to build real-world AI systems with direct mission impact. You will work closely with platform engineers, AI leadership, and mission stakeholders to move models from experimentation through production.

Responsibilities

• Build and evaluate machine learning models for mission-relevant use cases working directly with government researchers and program stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into executable technical solutions
• Develop and maintain model training, fine-tuning, and benchmarking workflows that are reproducible, well-documented, and usable by teammates without hand-holding
• Build and improve evaluation pipelines for repeatable, rigorous performance measurement across model architectures, datasets, and operational scenarios
• Integrate models into production-ready [R]AIMS platform infrastructure, working with platform engineers to ensure deployments are containerized, observable, and operationally sustainable
• Support experimentation across model architectures and datasets, maintaining clear records of results and surfacing actionable findings to AI leadership and mission stakeholders

Requirements

• 3 to 6 years of hands-on experience building and shipping production software or AI/ML systems
• Strong Python software engineering skills; writes clean, maintainable, production-quality code rather than notebook-only scripts
• Demonstrated experience developing and evaluating machine learning models, with a clear understanding of what makes an evaluation rigorous versus misleading
• Hands-on familiarity with modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, or Hugging Face
• Experience building and managing model training pipelines and experimentation workflows at a level beyond tutorial projects
• Experience working with distributed systems or cloud-native environments; comfortable in infrastructure that isn’t fully managed for you
• Strong debugging instincts; able to diagnose failure modes in complex pipelines and explain findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Able to work independently and manage workstreams without close supervision while staying well-integrated with a distributed team
• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to produce clear technical documentation, status updates, and evaluation summaries
• Able to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment
• S. citizenship required; ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI clearance

Qualifications

• Experience fine-tuning foundation models, LLMs, or multimodal models for specific domain tasks or constrained operational environments
• Experience designing or operating model evaluation frameworks and benchmarking pipelines at scale
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerized ML workloads, including deploying and debugging GPU-enabled inference services
• Experience with distributed training or large-scale inference systems
• Familiarity with streaming or event-driven architectures such as Kafka or Flink, particularly as they relate to real-time model inputs or outputs
• Experience building secure, compliant AI systems for regulated or mission-critical environments, including familiarity with RMF or IL requirements
• Prior defense, national security, or government R&D experience, particularly with AFRL or Air Force programs
• Experience working in prototype-to-production environments where research artifacts need to become operational systems
• Active Secret or Top Secret clearance strongly preferred

Benefits

Highly competitive salary
Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
401(k) and company match
Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
Education & training benefits
Generous Referral Bonuses

Pay

$170,000.00 - $220,000.00

Schedule

Hybrid in Rome, NY; candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to the Rome, NY area to support a hybrid schedule
Up to 25% travel