Software Engineer 3 - (Python, LLM, AI)

Akina • Columbia, MD

2d

About The Position

The Software Engineer 3 brings AI into an operations organization by embedding with operators, analysts, and developers supporting the CNO mission. The role learns how mission teams work, identifies time-consuming tasks, and builds AI agents and tools that help them work faster while preserving accuracy and control. Solutions use frontier and on-premises open-weight models through the customer's enterprise AI platform to support mission activities, including data triage, repetitive tradecraft automation, and research across disparate sources.

As a senior Applied AI Engineer, the role leads forward-deployed work with a mission customer from initial discussions through production and sets technical direction for the team's agents. The engineer mentors colleagues newer to applied AI and helps establish software development practices for AI, including review standards and validation layers for using autonomous coding agents on mission code. The position is suited to an experienced engineer interested in shaping how AI is fielded across operations and growing into project leadership.

Requirements

• Extensive professional software engineering experience with advanced Python proficiency, including production services, APIs, and data pipelines that users depend on.
• Experience building LLM applications or agentic systems using tool or function calling, structured outputs, context management, and multi-step workflows.
• Experience working directly with end users or mission customers to turn ambiguous operational problems into delivered software.
• Experience designing tests, evaluations, or validation layers for AI or other non-deterministic systems.
• Experience using AI coding assistants or agents for code generation, refactoring, and debugging, with the discipline to review, own, and explain all generated work.
• Technical leadership experience, such as serving as a tech lead, leading design decisions, or mentoring engineers.
• Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines (GitLab preferred), Docker/Kubernetes, and Atlassian tools such as Jira and Confluence.
• Strong written and verbal communication with technical and non-technical audiences.
• A minimum of 12 years of experience as a software engineer on programs and contracts of similar scope, type, and complexity.
• A bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline from an accredited college or university; four years of additional software engineering experience on projects with similar software processes may substitute for the degree.
• TS/SCI clearance with polygraph required.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), Skills, subagents, or multi-agent orchestration frameworks such as PydanticAI or LangGraph.
• Experience securing LLM applications against prompt injection, data leakage, and over-permissioned tool access.
• Experience with retrieval systems such as RAG, vector databases, or Elasticsearch.
• Experience building spec-driven or autonomous development pipelines with AI coding agents.
• Prior forward-deployed or embedded customer-facing engineering experience.
• Experience with production CNO capabilities and operations, or knowledge of end-to-end SIGINT collection and analysis systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead forward-deployed engagements with operations customers by eliciting requirements, identifying workflows where AI can save time, and delivering solutions from prototype through production.
• Architect and build agentic systems in Python that connect LLMs, MCP servers, Skills, and subagents to mission data sources and operational tools.
• Design guardrails for autonomous agents, including scoped permissions, human approval gates, and audit logging.
• Build evaluation suites with mission users to measure AI accuracy, reliability, and failure modes, and use the results to assess field readiness.
• Evaluate frontier and open-weight models, frameworks, and AI design patterns for mission problems, and brief findings and tradeoffs to technical and government leadership.
• Use AI coding agents such as Claude Code in daily development and help define standards for reviewing, testing, and validating AI-generated code.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing, and lead technical design discussions for the project area.
• Communicate project progress, risks, and tradeoffs to project leads and government stakeholders.

Benefits

• 24 days of PTO accrued annually and 11 federal holidays.
• 401(k) is 100% vested on the start date, with a direct company contribution worth 10% of salary.
• Company covers 100% of employee healthcare costs and 50% of dependent healthcare costs.
• Educational assistance for college classes.
• Coverage of costs associated with job-related training and certifications.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior