AI Engineer - Mission Innovation Lab

Carnegie-Mellon-University; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Carnegie Mellon University’s SEI AI Division is seeking an AI Engineer to translate cutting‑edge AI concepts into mission‑scale solutions for defense and national security. You will work with large foundation models, design autonomous agents, and deploy robust AI systems for government sponsors.

The role requires a strong ML theory foundation, experience fine‑tuning LLMs, and proficiency in Python with C/C++ or Java.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, ML, Statistics, Applied Math, or related field with 8+ years experience, or MS with 5+ years.
• Must be able to obtain/maintain DoW security clearance and work onsite 5 days/week in Pittsburgh, PA or Arlington, VA.
• Proficiency in Python and at least one compiled language; experience with REST/GraphQL APIs and containerization.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and fine‑tune AI models for mission scale applications.
• Build autonomous agents and multi‑step pipelines; deploy retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) pipelines.
• Create end‑to‑end data pipelines, ETL, and back‑end services; enable CI/CD and secure deployment.
• Mentor junior staff and participate in reviews and documentation; stay current with AI safety and new architectures.

Skills

Python

ML theory

LLM fine-tuning

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS or related field

MS degree in related field

Tools

Docker/Kubernetes

Hugging Face Transformers

LangChain

REST/GraphQL APIs

TensorFlow/PyTorch/JAX

PEFT/LoRA

Job description

About the SEI AI Division

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 identify and investigate emerging AI and AI‑adjacent technologies that are rapidly transforming the technology landscape.

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.

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.

Location

Arlington, VA, Pittsburgh, PA

Job Function

Software/Applications Development/Engineering

Position Type

Staff – Regular Full time/Part time Full time

Pay Basis

Salary

Equal Opportunity Statement

Carnegie Mellon University is an Equal Opportunity Employer/Disability/Veteran.

Statement of Assurance

Always focused on the future, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) advances software as a strategic advantage for national security. We lead research and direct transition of software engineering, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence technologies at the intersection of academia, industry, and government. We serve the nation as a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and are based at Carnegie Mellon University, a global research university annually rated among the best for its programs in computer science and engineering. Our people apply special knowledge and skills and are part of an elite research university. We perform research and apply our expertise every day to foresee problems and exploit opportunities in software engineering, AI engineering, and cybersecurity. Quality software that is secure will control the future. At CMU SEI, we are engineering that ever‑greater software‑fueled future.

Contact

Need Help? For technical assistance, email [e-mail] or call 412-268-5072. We are committed to providing an accessible experience throughout our recruitment process. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation at any stage of the application, interview, or hiring process, please contact Equal Opportunity Services by email at [e-mail] or by phone at 412-268-3930.