AI Engineer - Mission Innovation Lab

Software Engineering Institute | Carnegie Mellon University; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in Arlington, VA and Pittsburgh, PA seeks an AI Engineer to translate cutting-edge AI concepts into robust, mission-scale solutions for defense communities.

You will work with foundation models (GPT, LLaMA), build agentic workflows, and deploy end-to-end AI capabilities with robust security, reliability, and scalability considerations, collaborating with senior researchers and government sponsors.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, ML, Statistics, Applied Math or related field with 8+ years experience, or MS with 5+ years
• Background check and active DoW security clearance required
• Onsite work 5 days/week at SEI offices in Pittsburgh, PA or Arlington, VA
• Proficiency in Python and at least one compiled language (C/C++/Java); REST/GraphQL; containerization
• Strong ML theory and evaluation metrics knowledge
• Hands‑on fine‑tuning LLMs with frameworks like Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain or similar
• Familiarity with RAG pipelines, vector stores, and dense/sparse retrievers
• Experience with PEFT/LoRA methods on large models
• Understanding ModelContext protocols for multi-turn interactions
• Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or JAX; data pipelines (Airflow/Prefect/Ray) a plus
• Awareness of DevSecOps practices is desirable

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and fine-tune AI models for mission-scale use cases
• Build autonomous agents and multi-step pipelines using LangChain and tool-calling
• Create RAG pipelines combining external bases with LLMs for factual accuracy
• Develop end-to-end data pipelines and back-end services (Python, C/C++, Java) feeding models
• Set up CI/CD, containerized deployment (Docker/Kubernetes), and security scanning
• Maintain model registries, monitoring, and versioning for context protocols
• Produce rapid prototypes, run benchmarks, and perform robustness testing
• Collaborate with government sponsors, mentor junior staff, contribute to reviews/documentation
• Stay current with LLM architectures, PEFT/LoRA, and AI-safety practices

Skills

Python

C/C++

Java

REST/GraphQL APIs

ML theory

LLM fine-tuning

LangChain

PEFT/LoRA

ModelContext protocols

TensorFlow

PyTorch

JAX

DeepSpeed/ZeRO

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, ML, Statistics, Applied Mathematics

MS degree in related field with 5+ years experience

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

FastAPI

gRPC

Airflow

Prefect

Ray

Job description

At the SEI AI Division, we conduct research in applied artificial intelligence and the engineering questions related to the practical design and implementation of AI technologies and systems. We currently lead a community-wide movement to mature the discipline of AI Engineering for Defense and National Security.

As our government customers adopt AI and machine learning to provide leap-ahead mission capabilities, we build real-world, mission-scale AI capabilities through solving practical engineering problems, discover and define the processes, practices, and tools to support operationalizing AI for robust, secure, scalable, and human-centered mission capabilities, prepare our customers to be ready for the unique challenges of adopting, deploying, using, and maintaining AI capabilities, and identify and investigate emerging AI and AI-adjacent technologies that are rapidly transforming the technology landscape.

Are you creative, curious, energetic, collaborative, technology-focused, and hard-working? Are you interested in making a difference by bringing innovation to government organizations and beyond?

Overview

As an AI Engineer who thrives at the intersection of deep‑learning research and production‑grade software development, you will translate cutting‑edge AI concepts into robust, mission‑scale solutions for the warfighting community. You will work comfortably with large‑scale foundation models such as GPT and LLaMA, designing and deploying agentic workflows, as well as apply and advance traditional ML research and engineering across domains such as natural language processing, computer vision, time series forecasting, and other predictive analytics. You will collaborate closely with senior researchers, software engineers, and government sponsors to define problem statements, iterate on experimental designs, and deliver secure, reliable AI capabilities that meet stringent mission requirements.

The Mission Innovation Lab within the SEI’s AI Division works with the defense and national security community to translate the “recently possible” in AI into reliable mission and warfighting capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and fine‑tune a variety of AI models.
• Design autonomous agents and multi‑step pipelines using LangChain, ReAct, tool‑calling, or custom orchestration; employ the ModelContext protocol to manage stateful interactions.
• Build Retrieval‑Augmented Generation pipelines that combine external knowledge bases with LLMs to improve factual accuracy for warfighting applications.
• Implement end‑to‑end data pipelines, ETL processes, and back‑end services (Python, C/C++, Java) that feed data to models.
• Create CI/CD pipelines for model training, validation, containerized deployment (Docker/Kubernetes), and security scanning; maintain model registries, monitoring, and version control of context protocols.
• Produce rapid prototypes, run benchmarks, and conduct robustness/adversarial testing in realistic environments.
• Work closely with senior ML engineers, software developers, and government customers; mentor junior staff and contribute to design reviews and documentation.
• Stay current with emerging LLM architectures, agentic paradigms, PEFT/LoRA methods, and AI‑safety techniques; translate new research into operational capabilities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a related field with at least eight (8) years of relevant experience, or a MS degree in the same with at least five (5) years of relevant experience.
• You will be subject to a background investigation and must be able to obtain and maintain an active Department of War (DoW) security clearance.
• You must be able and willing to work onsite 5 days per week at an SEI office in either Pittsburgh, PA or Arlington, VA.
• Proficiency in Python and at least one compiled language (C/C++ or Java); experience with REST/GraphQL APIs and containerization.
• Strong grasp of ML theory (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement learning) and evaluation metrics.
• Hands‑on experience fine‑tuning LLMs and using frameworks such as Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, or comparable agent tools.
• Familiarity with building RAG pipelines (vector stores, dense/sparse retrievers).
• Experience applying PEFT/LoRA methods (e.g., LoRA, adapters) to large models.
• Understanding of ModelContext protocols for managing model state across multi‑turn interactions.
• Experience building evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, or data quality pipelines
• Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or JAX; knowledge of data‑pipeline tools (Airflow, Prefect, Ray) is a plus.
• Awareness of DevSecOps practices (CI/CD, GitOps, container security scanning, model‑registry concepts) is desirable.

Desired Experience

• Deploying LLM APIs (FastAPI, gRPC) at scale, handling latency and load balancing.
• Building multi‑tool agents, planner‑executor loops, or tool‑calling pipelines for complex decision‑making.
• Conducting adversarial testing, implementing input sanitization, and contributing to AI‑safety research.
• Utilizing GPU/TPU resources, mixed‑precision training, and distributed training frameworks such as DeepSpeed or ZeRO.
• Prior work on defense, intelligence, or government‑focused AI projects and familiarity with DoW acquisition or compliance processes.
• Contributing to open‑source AI and ML libraries, agentic frameworks, or context‑protocol implementations.

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

• Analytical thinking: decompose complex AI problems into tractable components and iterate rapidly.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills for documenting designs and presenting results to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Proven teamwork: collaborate in interdisciplinary groups, mentor peers, and contribute to shared codebases.
• High curiosity and autonomy: proactively explore emerging technologies and integrate them into mission work.

Location

Arlington, VA, Pittsburgh, PA

Job Function

Software/Applications Development/Engineering

Position Type

Staff – Regular

Full time/Part time

Full time

Pay Basis

Salary

More Information

• Please visit “Why Carnegie Mellon” to learn more about becoming part of an institution inspiring innovations that change the world.
• Carnegie Mellon University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran.
• Statement of Assurance