Group Leader, AI Safety & Ops Intelligence & Assurance

The MITRE Corporation•McLean, VA

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

Why choose between doing meaningful work and having a fulfilling life? At MITRE, you can have both. That's because MITRE people are committed to tackling our nation's toughest challenges—and we're committed to the long-term well-being of our employees. MITRE is different from most technology companies. We are a not-for-profit corporation chartered to work for the public interest, with no commercial conflicts to influence what we do. The R&D centers we operate for the government create lasting impact in fields as diverse as cybersecurity, healthcare, aviation, defense, and enterprise transformation. We're making a difference every day—working for a safer, healthier, and more secure nation and world. Our workplace reflects our values. We offer competitive benefits, exceptional professional development opportunities for career growth, and a culture of innovation that embraces adaptability, collaboration, technical excellence, and people in partnership. If this sounds like the choice you want to make, then choose MITRE - and make a difference with us. The Intelligent Solutions Department (P221) is seeking a Group Leader to join our leadership team located in McLean. P221, a member of the Advances Transportation Operations & Safety Division, is seeking to develop operational and prototype capabilities to support advancements in transportation operations & safety through focused development and application of aviation data engineering practices and analytic architectures, AI/ML and Natural Language Processing to advance safe, efficient, and resilient transportation operations that enable mobility for a better life. P221 is seeking a Group Leader for the AI Safety & Ops Intelligence & Assurance group. The focus of this group is to accelerate innovation in proactive safety and ops capabilities to monitor and detect emerging safety and ops risks and anomalies, in-time, through the development and application of AI/ML and NLP techniques and capabilities. This Group Leader will partner directly the Department Manager and the Department and Division Chief Engineers on the operations of the department and the technical and strategic execution of the work program. A primary responsibility will be to partner with department and division staff on the identification and shaping of new work opportunities aligned with Department capabilities. The Group Leader is expected to lead projects and tasks within the focus areas of the Department and deliver high-quality technical work products that enable the accomplishment of appropriate sponsor strategic and project level outcomes. The successful candidate is effective at communicating and partnering across management levels within MITRE, with MITRE sponsors, and with potential sponsoring organizations, recognizing and following through on new opportunities to apply the competencies of the Department. Seeking talented and enthusiastic individuals to lead groups of 6-10 technical staff.

Requirements

Typically requires a minimum of 10 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 8 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 5 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
Demonstrated experience leading people and projects and being motivated and rewarded by the success and development of others.
Demonstrated experience identifying, develop, shaping new work opportunities in alignment with organizational strategy.
Substantial technical background with ability to apply new innovations across a range of technical domains applicable to the division.
Substantial technical background developing and/or applying AI/ML, time-series forecasting, anomaly detection, and/or Natural Language Processing capabilities and techniques.
Demonstrated experience building, retaining, and growing high performance staff and leading teams in potentially disparate locations.
Experience in engaging with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Understanding of the FAA mission and capability need areas.
Significant exposure to and experience solving mission-oriented challenges of our sponsors.
Demonstrated experience mentoring staff in MITRE behaviors: taking risks, being agile, and fast responsiveness to high priority needs.
This position requires a minimum of 50% hybrid on-site

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with AI assurance concepts.
Familiarity with techniques for ensuring the interpretability and explainability of AI models.
Understanding of AI ethics, including issues like fairness, transparency, and privacy.

Responsibilities

Serve as a direct supervisor for 6-10 technical staff advancing continuous and proactive safety and ops monitoring through the development and application of AI/ML capabilities, data science, software engineering.
Providing expert guidance and direction as a leader and partner to aid in appropriate staff project/assignment alignment; identify appropriate work opportunities; conduct regular performance and development conversations; prepare performance assessments and development plans; mentor and advocate for staff; provide recognition and facilitate routine home management actions. Actively promote the ability for staff to take charge of their career.
Take active leadership role in department business development activities. These include identifying possible opportunities, crowdsourcing ideas, partnering with Department Manager, Outcome Leaders and other influencers within and outside of MITRE, encouraging the department's participation in other opportunities such as grant writing.
Take active leadership in setting department and work program strategy, assessing current tools and capabilities for adoption/adaption for new sponsors, assessing alignment of current and future skill needs in conjunction with this strategy, partnering with other leaders across FFRDCs to align strategies and foster the development of new impactful opportunities to deliver on department strategy.
Communicate on a regular basis with work leaders on group member performance in order to provide constructive feedback and support career development. Leverage these work leader relationships to match staff competencies with projects and identify stretch assignments to develop new skills.
Participate in shaping the group and department’s role in and its delivery on both the Advances Transportation Operations & Safety Division and Center for Integrated Transportation Mission Impact Focus Areas; Contribute to department, division, center, and/or corporate initiatives; Support staff in understanding and navigating administrative procedures and their department, division, center, and corporate mission and strategy; Communicate relevant information to staff; Be an engaged talent-cultivator.
Regularly engage with sponsors to drive mission impact.