Principal AI Software Engineer, PAE Fires

Job Description

The Army Soldier and Weapon Systems Department (N214) mission is to provide world class engineering workforce for combat, testing, and training capabilities to provide the U.S. Army an asymmetric advantage. Key sponsors of the Department work program include CPE Simulation, Training, Test, & Threat (Orlando, FL), CPE Ground – Soldier Systems (Fort Belvoir, VA), CPE Ground – Combat Platforms and DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (Ann Arbor, MI), DEVCOM Soldier System Center (Natick, MA), PAE Fires and CPE Aviation (Huntsville, AL), Army Test and Evaluation Command (Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD) and CPE Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (Edgewood, MD).

Roles and Responsibilities

• Leverage a technical understanding software expertise to integrate Artificial Intelligence into Intergraded Air and Missile Defense capabilities.
• Work within multiple disciplinary development team:
• Deliver strategy and recommendations to deliver optimal Technical Performance through the application of software engineering principles and best practices.
• Recognize technical challenges and lead engineering activities to deliver appropriate solutions.
• Identify and articulate program risks and associated opportunities.
• Establish goals and communicate clear expectations and guidance that contribute to highest priority sponsor outcomes.
• Establishing strong relationships within the sponsor organization.
• Defining opportunities to collaborate with organizations outside of the sponsor to create a greater mission outcome.

Basic Qualifications

• Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
• Experience translating business problems into Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI//ML) use cases with measurable outcomes.
• Strong understanding of data lifecycles: collection, labeling, cleaning, enrichment, and governance.
• Strong practical ML knowledge (supervised, unsupervised, basic deep learning) for specialized domains such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and/or Computer Vision (CV).
• Knowledge of AI/ML evaluation methodology such as proper train/validation/test splits, cross-validation.
• Experience with MLOps fundamentals (CI/CT/CD) for building, training, and deployment of AI/ML.
• Experience with responsible AI / ethical AI practices to detect bias, ensure fairness, and safety.
• Experience performing AI risk assessments and developing mitigation strategies.
• Hands-on skills in at least one and ideally multiple modern programming languages (e.g., Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, C/C++, C#, Python, Go, or Rust).
• Demonstrated experience with the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) ecosystem.
• Understanding of networking, including sockets, UDP/TCP, and multicast.
• Experience and proven results utilizing systems engineering and modern software best practices.
• Demonstrated ability and desire to quickly learn and apply new technologies.
• Experience and proven results utilizing systems engineering and modern software best practices.
• Experience in shifting an organization from project-thinking to product-thinking and flow-based work.
• Experience as a Scrum Master and/or Product Owner across multiple teams.
• Experience in removing impediments, shielding teams from unnecessary distractions, and fostering self-management.
• Successfully coached teams in slicing work, writing effective user stories, and managing backlogs.
• Experience in planning and facilitating Program Increment (PI) Planning and Inspect & Adapt workshops.
• Experience establishing Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and synchronizing multiple Scrum/Kanban teams.
• Hands-on experience with agile tools (Jira, Azure DevOps, Rally, etc.) for scaled environments.
• Prior experience developing or assessing Army systems or operations, reflected by: Working knowledge of Army organizations, missions, roles/responsibilities, and relationships.
• At least 5 years of experience working across Army organizations with an expert-level understanding on Software Engineering.
• Excellent interpersonal and technical communication skills, with the ability to author technical reports, present briefings, and persuasively speak to audiences of all backgrounds, including executives or senior customers.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an interdisciplinary team environment, establish and leverage a diverse professional network, and integrate contributions from a variety of resources (people, tools, organizations).
• Demonstrates collaboration and communication skills to support individual, team, and customer-related interaction.
• Demonstrated ability to take risks and lead work with partial insights, and operate effectively autonomously.
• Demonstrated ability to build collaboration across organizational units.

Preferred Qualifications

• An advanced degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or Game Development.
• Current/Active TS/SCI Clearance.
• Strong understanding of Agile values and principles and how to apply them pragmatically in different contexts.
• Experience in shifting an organization from project-thinking to product-thinking and flow-based work.
• Experience as a Scrum Master and/or Product Owner across multiple teams.
• Experience in removing impediments, shielding teams from unnecessary distractions, and fostering self-management.
• Successfully coached teams in slicing work, writing effective user stories, and managing backlogs.
• Experience in planning and facilitating Program Increment (PI) Planning and Inspect & Adapt workshops.
• Experience establishing Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and synchronizing multiple Scrum/Kanban teams.
• Hands-on experience with agile tools (Jira, Azure DevOps, Rally, etc.) for scaled environments.
• Prior experience developing or assessing Army systems or operations, reflected by: Working knowledge of Army organizations, missions, roles/responsibilities, and relationships.
• At least 5 years of experience working across Army organizations with an expert-level understanding on Software Engineering.
• Excellent interpersonal and technical communication skills, with the ability to author technical reports, present briefings, and persuasively speak to audiences of all backgrounds, including executives or senior customers.
• Demonstrated ability to work in an interdisciplinary team environment, establish and leverage a diverse professional network, and integrate contributions from a variety of resources (people, tools, organizations).
• Demonstrates collaboration and communication skills to support individual, team, and customer-related interaction.
• Demonstrated ability to take risks and lead work with partial insights, and operate effectively autonomously.
• Demonstrated ability to build collaboration across organizational units.