AI/ML Engineer
About The Position
Raft is a customer-obsessed non-traditional defense tech company dedicated to empowering U.S. military and government agencies with cutting-edge AI/ML and data solutions. We are a leader in autonomous data fusion and Agentic AI, with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development. With headquarters in McLean, VA, our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans. Our flagship AI platform, [R]AIMS (Raft AI Mission System), enables operators and engineers to rapidly build, deploy, evaluate, and govern AI-powered mission workflows across highly dynamic operational environments. We are expanding our AI/ML presence in Rome, NY to support Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and are looking for a hands-on AI/ML Engineer to contribute directly to model development, evaluation, and operational AI delivery. As an AI/ML Engineer embedded in Rome, NY, you will work directly on model development efforts while leveraging and extending [R]AIMS platform capabilities to accelerate experimentation, evaluation, deployment, and operational transition. This is a highly hands-on role for an engineer who wants to build real-world AI systems with direct mission impact. You will work closely with platform engineers, AI leadership, and mission stakeholders to move models from experimentation through production. The work sits at the intersection of applied machine learning, model training and evaluation, AI platform engineering, and operational AI deployment. You will need to be comfortable operating across that full span: writing training pipelines one day, integrating a model into a containerized deployment the next, and briefing a technical stakeholder on evaluation results the day after that.
Requirements
- 3 to 6 years of hands-on experience building and shipping production software or AI/ML systems
- Strong Python software engineering skills; writes clean, maintainable, production-quality code rather than notebook-only scripts
- Demonstrated experience developing and evaluating machine learning models, with a clear understanding of what makes an evaluation rigorous versus misleading
- Hands-on familiarity with modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX, or Hugging Face
- Experience building and managing model training pipelines and experimentation workflows at a level beyond tutorial projects
- Experience working with distributed systems or cloud-native environments; comfortable in infrastructure that isn’t fully managed for you
- Strong debugging instincts; able to diagnose failure modes in complex pipelines and explain findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Ability to work independently and manage workstreams without close supervision while staying well-integrated with a distributed team
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to produce clear technical documentation, status updates, and evaluation summaries
- Ability to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment
- U.S. citizenship required; ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI clearance
Nice To Haves
- Experience fine-tuning foundation models, LLMs, or multimodal models for specific domain tasks or constrained operational environments
- Experience designing or operating model evaluation frameworks and benchmarking pipelines at scale
- Experience with Kubernetes and containerized ML workloads, including deploying and debugging GPU-enabled inference services
- Experience with distributed training or large-scale inference systems
- Familiarity with streaming or event-driven architectures such as Kafka or Flink, particularly as they relate to real-time model inputs or outputs
- Experience building secure, compliant AI systems for regulated or mission-critical environments, including familiarity with RMF or IL requirements
- Prior defense, national security, or government R&D experience, particularly with AFRL or Air Force programs
- Experience working in prototype-to-production environments where research artifacts need to become operational systems
- Active Secret or Top Secret clearance strongly preferred
Responsibilities
- Build and evaluate machine learning models for mission-relevant use cases working directly with government researchers and program stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into executable technical solutions
- Develop and maintain model training, fine-tuning, and benchmarking workflows that are reproducible, well-documented, and usable by teammates without hand-holding
- Build and improve evaluation pipelines for repeatable, rigorous performance measurement across model architectures, datasets, and operational scenarios
- Integrate models into production-ready [R]AIMS platform infrastructure, working with platform engineers to ensure deployments are containerized, observable, and operationally sustainable
- Support experimentation across model architectures and datasets, maintaining clear records of results and surfacing actionable findings to AI leadership and mission stakeholders
Benefits
- Highly competitive salary
- Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
- 401(k) and company match
- Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
- Education & training benefits
- Generous Referral Bonuses
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
