AI Engineer

Parsons Corporation•Columbia, MD

20d•$176,900 - $332,400

About The Position

Parsons is hiring an AI Engineer to provide technical advisory support for the design, evaluation, and advancement of AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows. The role is intended for a hands-on technical professional familiar with how modern AI systems are built and able to guide teams developing practical solutions using large language models, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and supporting software infrastructure. The position emphasizes curiosity, prototyping, exploration of new frameworks, and continued learning about emerging AI techniques. As part of Parsons’ Federal Solutions team, the AI Engineer will provide SETA support to government teams and advise on AI application design, prototyping, integration, evaluation, architectures, development approaches, model usage, and technical risks. The role also supports AI tool testing and evaluation, technical guidance and briefings for government stakeholders, and collaboration with platform engineers, product leads, mission users, and government leadership. An active Top Secret SCI with Polygraph clearance is required.

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 Top Secret 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 in developing technical guidance, prototypes, engineering recommendations, and briefings for government stakeholders.
Support test and evaluation activities for 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 with changes in the AI ecosystem and provide informed recommendations on emerging tools and practices.