Senior Applied AI Engineer

Senior AI Engineer
TS/SCI and Poly Required 
Annapolis Junction, MD 

Responsibilities:
- Architect and implement production-grade AI systems for cyber operations, handling
scale and reliability.
- Lead technical exploration into novel AI applications, charting paths through unproven
territory.
- Design and build sophisticated agent orchestration systems that coordinate multiple AI
models and tools.
- Create robust MCP server implementations that become foundational infrastructure for
the team.
- Develop advanced prompt engineering strategies and reusable patterns for complex
cyber scenarios.
- Build fault-tolerant API integration layers that gracefully handle model failures and
edge cases.
- Mentor junior engineers while maintaining high personal code output.
- Make architectural decisions that balance innovation with operational reliability.
- Drive technical discussions about AI capabilities, limitations, and strategic applications.
-Create proof-of-concepts that demonstrate previously impossible capabilities.
- Establish best practices for AI development within the unique constraints of cyber
operations.

Skills Requirements:
- 12+ years of software engineering experience with deep Python expertise.
- Extensive hands-on experience building and deploying AI-powered applications in
production.
- Expert-level understanding of modern AI architectures (agents, RAG, chains, function
calling).
- Proven track record of integrating multiple AI services and handling their failure modes.
- Strong experience with MCP servers or similar model serving infrastructure.
- Advanced prompt engineering skills with demonstrable results.
- Experience building resilient distributed systems and handling async workflows.
- Deep understanding of AI model capabilities and limitations across providers.
- Ability to rapidly prototype while maintaining production-quality standards.
- Track record of solving novel technical problems without existing solutions.
- Excellent debugging skills for non-deterministic AI behaviors.
Nice to Haves:
- Direct experience applying AI to cybersecurity or intelligence use cases.
- Contributions to major AI frameworks or tools.
- Experience fine-tuning models for specialized domains.
- Background in building developer tools or platforms.
- Knowledge of adversarial AI and security considerations for AI systems.
- Published research or talks on applied AI topics.
- Experience leading technical initiatives in ambiguous problem spaces.