AI Engineer

Parsons Corporation•Columbia, MD

12d•$148,300 - $266,900

About The Position

Parsons is seeking a hands-on AI Engineer to provide technical advisory support for the design, evaluation, and advancement of AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows. The role guides teams developing practical solutions that use large language models, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and supporting software infrastructure. The ideal candidate enjoys building and prototyping, exploring emerging frameworks and techniques, and sharing technical knowledge. The position provides SETA support to government teams and collaborates with platform engineers, product leads, mission users, and government leadership. It contributes to technical guidance, prototypes, engineering recommendations, briefings, and test and evaluation activities. The position is part of Parsons' Federal Solutions team, which supports US government missions in areas including defense, security, intelligence, infrastructure, and environmental services.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field; additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
15+ years of related professional experience.
Experience designing, building, integrating, or evaluating AI/ML-enabled applications or software tools.
Familiarity with modern AI application patterns, including LLM-based applications, RAG, prompt engineering, agentic systems, and AI-assisted workflows.
Working knowledge of one or more agentic or orchestration frameworks, such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI, Haystack, or LlamaIndex, or similar ecosystems.
Experience with software development fundamentals, APIs, data handling, and system integration.
Ability to assess technical tradeoffs and communicate them clearly to engineers and government stakeholders.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Active TS SCI with Polygraph security clearance.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree preferred.
At least 17 years of experience with a bachelor's degree, or 15 years with a master's degree, in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
Experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or similar languages commonly used in AI application development.
Familiarity with vector databases, embeddings, model APIs, evaluation frameworks, and agent testing harnesses.
Exposure to model hosting, inference pipelines, or cloud-based AI development environments.
Understanding of secure AI development practices, data protection, and operational constraints in government settings.
Experience supporting defense, cyber, intelligence, or mission application development.
Familiarity with human-in-the-loop workflows, AI assurance, and evaluation methodologies.

Responsibilities

Provide SETA support to government teams developing or assessing AI-enabled applications and tools.
Advise on technical approaches for AI application design, prototyping, integration, and evaluation.
Assess solutions involving LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, agentic workflows, orchestration layers, prompt pipelines, and evaluation harnesses.
Support reviews of architectures, development approaches, model usage patterns, and technical risk areas.
Advise on AI engineering considerations, including latency, reliability, observability, testability, guardrails, data flow, and system integration.
Evaluate and compare modern AI frameworks, agentic libraries, and experimentation harnesses for suitability in mission use cases.
Assist with developing technical guidance, prototypes, engineering recommendations, and briefings for government stakeholders.
Support testing and evaluation of AI tools, including performance assessment, qualitative review, and workflow validation.
Collaborate with platform engineers, product leads, mission users, and government leadership to keep AI efforts technically grounded and operationally relevant.
Stay current on changes in the AI ecosystem and provide informed recommendations on emerging tools and practices.