Senior AI/ML Engineer
About The Position
Leidos’ Defense Systems, Advanced Sensors and Protective Technologies Portfolio is seeking a talented Senior AI/ML Engineer to integrate generative AI and agentic AI systems into existing software products. Working within a multidisciplinary team, this role spans the evaluation and integration of large language models (LLMs), vision-language models (VLMs), and multimodal LLMs (mLLMs), as well as the design and governance of agentic AI solutions. The Advanced Sensors and Protective Technologies portfolio develops and evaluates EO/IR sensor systems and protective capabilities that enhance threat detection, survivability, and mission effectiveness. This includes safeguarding mission‑critical systems through advanced microelectronic hardware assurance to ensure components remain trusted and secure. We advance sensor system technologies and hardware assurance through real‑world testing, modeling and simulation, and performance analysis to support the transition of emerging capabilities into operational systems. Leidos Defense Systems Sector provides a diverse portfolio of systems, solutions, and services covering land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace for customers worldwide. Solutions for Defense include enterprise and mission IT, large-scale intelligence systems, command and control, geospatial and data analytics, cybersecurity, logistics, training, and intelligence analysis and operations support. Our team is solving the world’s toughest security challenges for customers with “can’t fail” missions.
Requirements
- Must be able and willing to obtain and maintain a DoD Secret Clearance (U.S. Citizenship required)
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or related field and 8+ years of experience.
- 5+ years of relevant experience working with AI/ML, including hands-on production integration of LLMs/VLMs
- Proven track record managing agentic AI systems through a full lifecycle
- Strong experience with agentic frameworks and patterns (MCP, tool/function calling, etc.)
- Familiarity with model documentation practices (model cards, versioned model registries) and AI governance requirements in regulated environments
- Proficiency with Python and ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers)
- Experience with prompt engineering and evaluation methodologies for generative AI
- Understanding of deployment practices (containerization, APIs, CI/CD, versioning for ML/agentic systems)
- Ability to lead the development of technical solutions for AI/ML or agentic systems and mentor other team members
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
Nice To Haves
- Active DoD SECRET clearance or above.
- Experience applying mLLMs and VLMs
- Experience with MLOps/AgentOps tooling (MLflow, etc.)
- Familiarity with vector databases and RAG architectures
- Experience fine-tuning transformer-based models
- Experience with cloud/government cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GovCloud, IL levels)
- Experience presenting technical strategies to leadership or customers
Responsibilities
- Lead the integration of LLMs, VLMs, and mLLMs into existing software products and platforms
- Design and execute fine-tuning strategies for pretrained models (LoRA, QLoRA, RLHF/DPO)
- Architect agentic AI solutions: agent/skill design, MCP tool/server integrations, and multi-agent orchestration workflows
- Set organizational standards for prompt engineering to optimize agent reasoning and output quality
- Lead the development of test harnesses, evaluation suites, and red-teaming/adversarial testing for agentic systems prior to production release
- Own end-to-end deployment and operations of agentic AI systems – CI/CD, monitoring, versioning and rollback, and lifecycle management
- Collaborate with software engineers, product owners, security, and data teams to align capabilities with product and compliance requirements
- Present architectures and lifecycle strategies to technical leadership and stakeholders
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
