Applied AI Engineer

Fairbanks Morse Defense•Beloit, WI

3d•$113,000 - $169,000•Remote

About The Position

Fairbanks Morse Defense builds and supports the engines and power systems that keep U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships underway. Our Aftermarket business is launching a portfolio of AI, business intelligence, and process-automation projects under the Fairbanks Morse Operating System (FMOS) continuous improvement program, with one goal: help our people quote faster, serve customers better, and spend less time on manual data work. We are hiring an Applied AI Engineer to be the hands-on builder behind that portfolio. The idea pipeline is already prioritized and the program has active executive sponsorship. What we need is the engineer who turns those ideas into secure, production-grade AI solutions running in Microsoft Azure: an inside-sales assistant that answers questions from our technical manuals, an agent that reviews contracts and drafts quotes, automated pricing and PO checks, onboarding assistants for new hires, and more. This is a fully remote role. No security clearance is required.

Requirements

5+ years building and supporting production software, automation, or AI solutions, with a BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Hands-on experience deploying and operating applications in Microsoft Azure (e.g., App Service / Functions, storage, identity, and Azure OpenAI / Azure AI services).
Demonstrated experience shipping LLM-based applications to production, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool use / function calling, and orchestration.
Strong Python and SQL skills, plus REST API design and integration using modern authentication (OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect).
Working experience with Git, CI/CD, and containerization (e.g., Docker), and with AI-assisted coding tools such as Claude / Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini, or GitHub Copilot.
U.S. citizenship. This position requires access to Unclassified Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information, which is Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals (NOFORN). Candidates must provide proof of U.S. citizenship (U.S. passport, U.S. birth certificate, or naturalization certificate) and attest that they do not hold dual citizenship. No security clearance is required.

Nice To Haves

Experience building applications in Azure Government Cloud (GCC-High, FedRAMP, IL4 / IL5) environments.
Experience with CMMC and government-contract IT compliance, including NIST 800-171, DFARS, STIG, and RMF.
Network design and integration experience, including virtual networks, VPN / private endpoints, and secure connectivity.
Experience with agent frameworks such as Microsoft Semantic Kernel, LangChain, LangGraph, or AutoGen, and with vector databases, embedding models, and RAG over large technical-document collections.
Familiarity with LLM evaluation, observability, and prompt-engineering best practices.
Experience with EDI or order-processing automation, and with the Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate, Power Apps).
Experience building BI dashboards and data models (e.g., Power BI) from ERP and CRM systems such as Oracle and Salesforce.
Experience integrating with Oracle ERP, Salesforce, HFM, and CPQ / quoting platforms.
JavaScript / TypeScript experience; C# / .NET is a plus.
Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Bicep) and CI/CD with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
Product ownership experience, such as managing a backlog, defining requirements, and tracking ROI.
Experience in manufacturing, defense, or maritime / aftermarket service environments, and familiarity with Lean / Six Sigma or other continuous-improvement methods.

Responsibilities

Partner with the continuous improvement lead, executive sponsors, and business subject-matter experts to turn prioritized ideas into deployed, measurable solutions, starting with the highest-impact, lowest-effort items.
Design, build, and deploy AI agents using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool use / function calling, and human-in-the-loop controls for use cases such as a technical-data inside-sales assistant, contract review and quoting, project-brief and after-action-review generation, and new-hire onboarding.
Build document-processing and OCR workflows over technical manuals, contracts, Excel workbooks, and scanned content.
Develop process-automation solutions, such as EDI-style order processing, PO review and compliance checks, price justification, and “like-parts” categorization, that remove manual effort and improve accuracy.
Use AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate development and help establish best practices for their secure use across the team.
Deploy and operate solutions in Microsoft Azure, including App Service / Functions, storage, identity, and Azure OpenAI, within a government-cloud (GCC-High) tenant.
Work with the IT team to connect solutions to existing systems through virtual networks, private endpoints, and secure APIs.
Set up CI/CD pipelines, logging, and monitoring so solutions are repeatable, observable, and reliable in production.
Handle credentials, model inputs/outputs, and sensitive data securely, in line with the company’s government-contract compliance requirements.
Integrate with enterprise systems such as Oracle ERP, Salesforce, Oracle Hyperion Financial Management (HFM), and CPQ / quoting tools; build and secure the REST APIs and data pipelines that feed AI solutions.
Support reporting and dashboard needs (e.g., revenue/margin, P&L, and utilization) where they complement AI and automation projects.
Serve as the technical lead for AI and automation projects: help define requirements with subject-matter experts and coordinate with FMD’s technology development and AI team and with IT.
Establish development standards, documentation, and evaluation / observability practices to measure and continuously improve AI output quality.
Help track solution impact and ROI so the program can demonstrate value early.
Provide technical direction to other developers and contract resources supporting the initiative.
Other duties as assigned.