Software Engineer | Secure AI

Bestgate Engineering • Columbia, MD

16h

About The Position

Bestgate Engineering is hiring for multiple software engineering opportunities at the intersection of backend engineering and applied AI. The role is not about training foundation models; it is about building the secure "paved road" that lets enterprise systems use AI safely, repeatably, and with the right guardrails.

Requirements

• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain a U.S. Government security clearance.
• Strong Java software engineering experience, including modern frameworks and libraries such as Spring or Guava.
• Experience designing enterprise APIs, RESTful services, and microservice architectures.
• Familiarity with applied AI concepts such as prompt engineering, tool use, function calling, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation.
• Comfort with Git, Nexus, Maven, Linux command line workflows, and agile delivery.
• Strong troubleshooting, testing, and communication skills.

Nice To Haves

• Spring AI, LangChain4j, LangChain, LlamaIndex, vector databases, semantic caching, or AI observability tools.
• NiFi, Kafka, AWS, Kubernetes, SQL/NoSQL databases, Python scripting, or Big Data platform exposure.
• DoD 8140/8570 certification readiness if required by the customer.

Responsibilities

• Design and build internal APIs, middleware, routing layers, and reusable services for secure AI integration.
• Develop Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and reusable AI skills that connect models to databases, microservices, and external APIs.
• Implement enterprise guardrails for privacy, sensitive data handling, prompt injection defense, and output validation.
• Build and test software patterns for non-deterministic AI outputs and agent-like workflows.
• Work across backend services, applied AI patterns, and secure software delivery practices.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed