Senior Software Engineer - Applied AI
About The Position
DRS RADA Technologies, a subsidiary of Leonardo DRS, is focused on proprietary radar solutions and legacy avionics systems supporting the defense industry globally. The company is a global pioneer of AESA tactical radars for active military protection, counter-drone applications, critical infrastructure protection, and border surveillance. DRS RADA Technologies in Germantown, MD, is hiring a Senior Software Engineer-Applied AI. This position is full time and on-site. We are a global pioneer in AESA tactical radar, as a Senior Software Engineer-Applied AI, you'll build the tools, backend services, and internal applications that bring AI/ML into our software development and business workflows. This is a hands-on engineering role: you'll ship LLM integrations, retrieval and summarization pipelines, workflow automation, and classification tooling on a Linux-based platform, working in Python alongside engineers building Rust microservices and TypeScript UIs. You'll partner with technical leads and domain experts to turn AI/ML requirements into maintainable, production-grade software, owning the engineering that takes models from prototype to production. As a senior member of the team, you'll also mentor engineers and set the bar on design, code quality, and engineering practices.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- 5+ years of professional software development experience
- Strong Python proficiency and experience building software in Linux environments
- Experience building backend services, internal tools, automation, or APIs, working with both structured and unstructured data
- Hands-on experience with AI/ML-enabled applications (e.g., document search, summarization, extraction, prompt-based workflows, model evaluation/integration, or classification pipelines)
- Familiarity with modern engineering practices: version control, testing, debugging, and code review
- Strong problem-solving skills and effective collaboration across backend, platform, and UI teams and with domain experts
- U.S. Citizenship required.
- This position requires an active DOD security clearance or the ability to obtain such clearance within a reasonable time after commencement of employment.
Nice To Haves
- RAG pipelines, embeddings, vector search, or document retrieval workflows
- Ollama, open-source LLMs, or private/local model deployment
- LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar orchestration frameworks
- FastAPI, Flask, or similar backend frameworks; microservice and service-integration patterns
- Docker, CI/CD, logging, and observability in Linux environments
- Model evaluation or classification work using structured, image, time-series, or sensor-derived datasets
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain internal tools, backend services, and automation workflows in Python on a Linux platform
- Develop AI/ML-enabled features: document search, summarization, extraction, retrieval-based workflows, and intelligent automation
- Integrate LLMs, APIs, and internal/external services; define service interfaces and data contracts across Python, Rust, and TypeScript
- Support the ML lifecycle (dataset preparation, labeling, training/evaluation automation, and model integration) in partnership with technical leads and domain experts
- Write testable, production-quality code and own deployment, logging, troubleshooting, and documentation in Linux environments
- Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership on design and sound engineering practices
Benefits
- comprehensive health insurance (medical, dental, vision)
- employer matching 401(k) retirement plan
- paid time off including vacation, holidays, and sick leave (including ant state-mandated paid sick leave)
- parental leave benefits
- tuition reimbursement
- professional development support
- life and disability insurance coverage
- company contribution to a health savings account
- telemedicine
- legal insurance
- 401(k) savings plan
- wellness programs
- programs and activities to support career-growth, professional development, and skill enhancement
- flexible work schedules with our 9/80 program
- community service hours
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
