AI Engineer (Supporting MDA)

Mission Driven Research • Huntsville, AL

2d

About The Position

MDR is looking for an AI Engineer to provide technical support for the design, evaluation, and advancement of AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows. This role is for a hands-on technical professional who understands how modern AI systems are built and can develop practical solutions using large language models, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and supporting software infrastructure. The ideal candidate is a builder who explores new frameworks, prototypes ideas, and continuously learns emerging techniques. Curiosity and passion for the fast-moving AI ecosystem are highly valued.

Requirements

• Masters degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, or related field and 12+ years of relevant experience
• Active Secret clearance required
• 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.
• Experience with software development fundamentals, APIs, data handling, and system integration.
• Ability to assess technical tradeoffs and communicate them clearly to both engineers and government stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Nice To Haves

• Ability to obtain a TS SCI clearance required
• 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.
• Working knowledge of one or more agentic or orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI, Haystack, LlamaIndex, or similar ecosystems.

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 the review of architectures, development approaches, model usage patterns, and technical risk areas.
• Advise on AI engineering considerations such as 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 the development of 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 ensure AI efforts remain technically grounded and operationally relevant.
• Stay current on rapid changes in the AI ecosystem and provide informed recommendations on emerging tools and practices.

Benefits

• Equal Opportunity Employer, including disability/veterans

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal