Senior AI Developer

About the role

We are seeking a dynamic, forward-thinking Senior AI Software Engineer (GenAI, Agents & RAG) to assist in the design and implementation of enterprise-wide AI-powered tools, workflows, and practices across both internal operations and client delivery teams. This candidate will partner with our internal AI Lab, delivery teams, and back-office functions including Finance, HR, Recruiting, and BD to identify high-impact AI use cases, select or build fit-for-purpose tools, and train teams on their use to drive measurable gains in efficiency, quality, and innovation.

Responsibilities

• Develop end-to-end AI solutions including LLM-powered applications, predictive ML models, multi-agent workflows, RAG pipelines, and specialized AI microservices.
• Implement reusable AI components, libraries, and APIs that streamline application development and accelerate delivery across programs.
• Integrate AI models with enterprise systems, APIs, data platforms, vector databases, and cloud-native services to deliver scalable mission capabilities.
• Drive iterative experimentation, prototyping, and model improvement cycles in collaboration with Data Scientists and AI Evaluation Scientists.
• Design and implement advanced prompt strategies, context management layers, retrieval systems, and LLM orchestration logic.
• Build scalable inference services, optimize model performance, and collaborate with LLMOps to enable robust deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Translate user needs and mission workflows into intuitive, reliable AI-powered features through active partnership with designers and product teams.
• Implement secure-by-design and trustworthy AI practices, including safety guardrails, input sanitization, content filtering, and integration of evaluation metrics.
• Contribute to internal AI frameworks, code patterns, and shared accelerators that raise delivery quality across the AI & Data Exploitation Practice.
• Participate in code reviews and support engineering excellence across multi-disciplinary AI delivery teams.
• Stay current with emerging AI techniques, libraries, foundation models, and agent frameworks, evaluating their applicability to client missions.

Qualifications

• Must be local to DC Metro Area, 2-3 days/week in McLean Office.
• 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, with some exposure to AI/ML, generative AI, or LLM-driven application development.
• Experience 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.
• A collaborative mindset and a commitment to raising the technical quality of development work.
• Ability to hold a position of public trust with the U.S. government.

Benefits

The projected compensation range for this position is $140,000 to $180,000. The estimate displayed represents a typical annual salary range for this position. Annual salary is just one aspect of Steampunk's total compensation package for employees. Learn more about additional Steampunk benefits here.

Identity Statement

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Steampunk participates in the E-Verify program.