AI Developer / Product SME

steampunk•McLean, VA

13h•$145,000 - $185,000

About The Position

Overview We are seeking an experienced AI Developer / Product SME to serve as a technical authority and product-focused subject-matter expert across our predictive and generative AI solution portfolio. This role will provide expert guidance on the architecture, design, development, and delivery of enterprise-grade AI applications—spanning LLM-powered systems, RAG pipelines, agents, multimodal solutions, and custom machine learning models. The AI Developer / Product SME will work closely with engineering, product, UX, evaluation, governance, and client leadership to define AI capabilities that meaningfully support mission outcomes. Contributions Serve as the senior technical expert for the design and implementation of production AI systems, advising teams on architecture, model selection, orchestration strategies, and optimal development patterns. Lead the creation of scalable, reusable AI components, services, and frameworks that accelerate delivery across the organization. Partner with product teams to translate mission challenges into well-defined AI-enabled features, workflows, and technical requirements. Provide deep expertise on LLMs, embedding models, fine-tuning techniques, agentic systems, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures. Guide engineering teams on best practices for prompt engineering, context management, document processing, evaluation-driven iteration, and safe system design. Collaborate with LLMOps teams to ensure robust deployment patterns, monitoring strategies, inference optimization, and lifecycle management of AI models and pipelines. Conduct technical reviews, validate solution designs, and ensure alignment with enterprise architecture, governance policies, and client goals. Mentor senior engineers and guide teams through complex AI development challenges with a focus on software engineering excellence and user-centered design. Stay current with emerging AI technologies, research, frameworks, and foundational models; evaluate their suitability for client missions and incorporate learnings into practice standards. Act as an expert advisor in client-facing discussions, helping stakeholders understand capability tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities associated with AI solutions. Contribute to the development of accelerators, design patterns, internal best-practice guides, workshops, and training to expand AI delivery maturity across the practice. Represent Steampunk as a thought leader in AI architecture, engineering, and product strategy. You will contribute to the growth of our AI & Data Exploitation Practice!

Requirements

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 .
8+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering, software development, or applied AI product development.
Deep expertise in modern AI frameworks such as PyTorch , TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain , LlamaIndex , and relevant orchestration tools.
Proven experience building production-grade generative AI applications, including LLM integration, retrieval pipelines, fine-tuning, embeddings, agents, or multimodal workflows.
Strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) including secure architecture patterns, serverless services, containerization, and distributed compute .
Experience developing APIs, microservices, and scalable backend systems that integrate AI capabilities into user-facing applications.
Strong ability to frame technical solutions in the context of mission needs and product strategy; ability to influence feature design and roadmap decisions.
Familiarity with AI governance principles, safety constraints, evaluation frameworks, and compliance considerations for production AI systems.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate complex AI concepts to technical and non-technical audiences, including clients and executives.
Demonstrated leadership in mentoring engineers, elevating team performance, and establishing engineering best practices.

Nice To Haves

AWS/Azure/GCP ML Specialty
Databricks ML Professional
NIST AI RMF Practitioner (AISIC)
NVIDIA DLI Certifications
or similar advanced AI engineering credentials.

Responsibilities

Serve as the senior technical expert for the design and implementation of production AI systems, advising teams on architecture, model selection, orchestration strategies, and optimal development patterns.
Lead the creation of scalable, reusable AI components, services, and frameworks that accelerate delivery across the organization.
Partner with product teams to translate mission challenges into well-defined AI-enabled features, workflows, and technical requirements.
Provide deep expertise on LLMs, embedding models, fine-tuning techniques, agentic systems, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures.
Guide engineering teams on best practices for prompt engineering, context management, document processing, evaluation-driven iteration, and safe system design.
Collaborate with LLMOps teams to ensure robust deployment patterns, monitoring strategies, inference optimization, and lifecycle management of AI models and pipelines.
Conduct technical reviews, validate solution designs, and ensure alignment with enterprise architecture, governance policies, and client goals.
Mentor senior engineers and guide teams through complex AI development challenges with a focus on software engineering excellence and user-centered design.
Stay current with emerging AI technologies, research, frameworks, and foundational models; evaluate their suitability for client missions and incorporate learnings into practice standards.
Act as an expert advisor in client-facing discussions, helping stakeholders understand capability tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities associated with AI solutions.
Contribute to the development of accelerators, design patterns, internal best-practice guides, workshops, and training to expand AI delivery maturity across the practice.
Represent Steampunk as a thought leader in AI architecture, engineering, and product strategy.