Staff Scientist - AI / ML Developer

MIT Lincoln Laboratory•Lexington, MA

2d•$140,000 - $187,000

About The Position

The Homeland Protection Systems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory develops and deploys advanced technologies to address national security challenges involving the National Airspace, population centers, and critical infrastructure. The group conducts systems analysis, technology development, and rapid prototyping, applying data analysis, predictive analytics, and systems engineering in a collaborative, cross-functional research and development environment. The AI/ML Developer will contribute to homeland protection and national security projects by prototyping and applying algorithms in areas such as time series analysis, natural language processing, graph analytics, and multimodal learning. The role also involves architecting, integrating, and building AI/ML systems to meet stakeholder needs, including communication and compute infrastructure, and advising stakeholders on AI/ML solutions, research advances, and emerging trends. At Technical Staff Level 5, the successful candidate leads projects or major technical workstreams, performs independent research on complex problems, and helps manage programs or teams undertaking technology prototype efforts. The position calls for deep technical expertise, sound judgment, leadership through ambiguity, and effective collaboration across multidisciplinary teams and sponsor-driven work. The staff member will mentor colleagues, contribute to technical deliverables, and help improve practices within the Group or mission area.

Requirements

Expertise in AI/ML system development and integration.
Expertise in one or more AI/ML domains or specializations.
Experience developing code using Python and Git, with software management best practices.
Familiarity with backend development, including server-side logic, database management, and APIs.
Ability to work independently as an individual contributor and collaboratively with a team.
Bachelor’s degree in a STEM discipline or other relevant technical field and typically at least 6 years of relevant experience; or a Master’s degree and typically at least 4 years; or a Ph.D. and typically at least 0 years; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Diverse technical expertise and demonstrated ability to adapt it to unfamiliar or emerging disciplines, systems, mission areas, or methods.
Education, skills, and experience demonstrating the ability to apply significant technical judgment to broad technical challenges requiring integration across related systems or methods.
Demonstrated ability to lead projects or major workstreams and deliver complex technical outcomes.
Experience evaluating trade-offs, recommending paths forward, and adapting technical approaches to evolving project needs.
Demonstrated mentorship, collaboration, and ability to communicate recommendations, risks, and technical findings to varied audiences.
Experience contributing to technical reports, papers, presentations, proposals, or other formal technical deliverables.
A degree in computer science, electrical engineering, applied mathematics, or another relevant discipline will be considered.
Must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret-level DoD security clearance.
U.S. citizenship is required.

Nice To Haves

Experience translating research concepts into working prototypes, including design, implementation, evaluation, and iterative refinement.
Critical-thinking ability, including decomposing complex, ill-defined problems, defining and evaluating approaches, and providing reasoned evidence for proposed solutions.
Strong written and oral communication skills, including documenting work products, preparing technical reports, and presenting results to technical and non-technical audiences.
Current TS/SCI clearance or willingness to obtain one.

Responsibilities

Prototype and apply state-of-the-art algorithms in time series analysis, natural language processing, graph analytics, multimodal learning, and other applicable machine-learning domains.
Architect, integrate, and build AI/ML systems to meet stakeholder needs, including supporting communication and compute infrastructure.
Assess and advise stakeholders on proposed AI/ML solutions, advances in AI/ML research, and emerging trends in the AI/ML community.
Lead projects or major workstreams involving multidisciplinary design, development, data analysis, programming, prototyping, integration, testing, or transition activities.
Apply technical expertise to complex problems and evaluate alternative approaches, trade-offs, risks, and mission implications.
Influence technical approaches to mission research, systems and subsystems, architecture design, and integration.
Structure and manage ambiguous work by translating project objectives into actionable technical plans.
Mentor colleagues by reviewing work, providing constructive feedback and technical guidance, and helping develop their judgment and problem-solving skills.
Identify opportunities to improve tools, processes, methods, documentation, and execution practices.
Contribute to engineering or scientific papers, technical reports, presentations, and, where applicable, proposal or grant materials.
Help develop and execute programs, create briefings and reports, and interface with sponsors.