AI Software Engineer - TS/SCI with Polygraph

General Dynamics Information Technology; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 187,000 - 252,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical plan options

Health Savings Account (HSA)

Dental plan options

Vision plan

401(k) with company match

Flexible work weeks

Job summary

General Dynamics Information Technology in Chantilly, VA, seeks an experienced AI Software Engineer (SME) to design, develop, and sustain cloud-enabled applications. You will work on secure, scalable mission-critical customer systems with frontend and backend web development, plus modern search tech like LLMs, RAG, and semantic retrieval.

The role requires 10+ years of related experience, TS/SCI with Polygraph clearance, and hands-on work across React, Node/Express, APIs, and security

Qualifications

• Lean Agile development experience.
• Experience translating customer and system requirements into actionable design specs.
• Experience designing system interfaces, data flows and integration points.
• Experience building or integrating LLM-based solutions, including RAG pipelines and semantic search.
• Experience designing data pipelines for hybrid search (BM25 + vector) in RAG workflows.
• Experience with Elasticsearch indexing, query development and clustering.

Responsibilities

• Participate in Lean Agile scrums, sprint planning and grooming.
• Coordinate with stakeholders for problem resolution and task clarification.
• Work with an integrated team of staff and contractors.
• Collaborate with security, operations, engineering and testing teams for system information and support.
• Understand approved cloud environments (e.g., AWS).
• Design, develop and modify software systems and APIs.
• Unit test software and perform code reviews.
• Design and implement scalable search and retrieval systems using Elasticsearch.
• Develop and integrate LLM-powered capabilities and RAG pipelines.
• Document vendor software roadmaps and patch updates.

Skills

Chatbots

ElasticSearch

RAG Pipeline

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

React

Node.js

Express.js

HTML5

CSS3

REST APIs

Job description

Type of Requisition:

Regular

Clearance Level Must Currently Possess:

Top Secret SCI + Polygraph

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain:

None

Public Trust/Other Required:

None

Job Family:

Data Science and Data Engineering

Job Qualifications:

Skills:

Chatbots, ElasticSearch, RAG Pipeline

Certifications:

None

Experience:

10 + years of related experience

US Citizenship Required:

Yes

Job Description:

Transform technology into opportunity as an AI Software Engineer (SME) with GDIT. We are seeking a hands‑on software engineer with expertise in designing, developing, and sustaining cloud‑enabled applications in Lean Agile environments to deliver secure, scalable, and maintainable mission‑critical customer systems. The role requires expertise in frontend and backend Web development and modern search engineering technologies, including Large Language Models (LLM), Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), and AI‑assisted retrieval system capabilities development.

KEY TASKS:

• Participate in all Lean Agile scrums, sprint planning, and grooming sessions.
• Consult and coordinate with stakeholders for problem resolution, task scheduling, resource needs, and task clarification.
• Work in partnership with an integrated team of staff and contractors.
• Coordinate and collaborate with security, operations, engineering, testing, and other teams to provide system information and technical support.
• Understand and work within approved cloud environments (e.g., AWS).
• Design, develop, and modify software systems.
• Unit test software and perform code reviews.
• Design and implement scalable search and retrieval systems leveraging Elasticsearch.
• Develop and integrate LLM‑powered capabilities, including Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines.
• Document and track vendor software roadmaps for software and patch version updates.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND DEMONSTRATED EXPERIENCE:

• Demonstrated experience working in Lean Agile Development environment.
• Demonstrated experience translating customer and system requirements into actionable design specifications.
• Demonstrated experience designing system interfaces, including defining integration points, data flows, and data exchange workflows.
• Demonstrated experience building or integrating LLM-based solutions, including RAG pipelines, semantic search, and AI‑assisted retrieval systems.
• Demonstrated experience designing and implementing data pipelines for hybrid search (BM25 + vector search) in RAG workflows, covering ingestion, chunking, embeddings, and vector retrieval.
• Demonstrated experience with Elasticsearch, included index design and optimization, query development, relevance tuning, and cluster scaling.
• Demonstrated hands‑on experience in frontend Single Page Applications (SPA) development using React (hooks), HTML5, CSS3, and modern JavaScript best practices.
• Demonstrated hands‑on experience in backend development, including designing and building RESTful APIs with Node.js and Express.js (or comparable modern backend frameworks).
• Demonstrated hands‑on experience troubleshooting web protocols and server technologies, including Apache Tomcat, Node.js, Web Services, and SSL/TLS security configurations.
• Demonstrated experience using modern testing platforms such as Jest or Karma.
• Demonstrated experience with DevOps tools including Git, Jenkins, and Nexus.

HIGHLY DESIRED SKILLS AND DEMONSTRATED EXPERIENCE:

• Experience with the customer’s Lean Agile methodology.
• Experience evaluating, selecting, or integrating LLMs (e.g., OpenAI, open‑source models) into enterprise applications.
• Experience with vector databases, hybrid search (keyword + semantic), and relevance optimization.
• Experience with or exposure to RAG, LLM integrations, or semantic search.
• Experience with Elasticsearch or similar search platforms, with some exposure to optimization or scaling.
• Experience mentoring teams in search engineering and AI/LLM best practices, with a demonstrated ability to improve overall team capability.
• Experience with React + Node/Express development, with the ability to quickly ramp into search/AI domains.
• Experience working on APIs or systems that integrate with external AI/ML services.
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly with guidance and become a team multiplier.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO SUCCEED:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or the equivalent combination of education, technical certifications or training, or work experience.
• Experience: 10+ years
• Security clearance: TS/SCI with Polygraph
• Location: Chantilly, VA (On Customer Site)
• US Citizenship Required

The likely salary range for this position is $186,542 - $252,379. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.

Scheduled Weekly Hours:

40

Travel Required:

Less than 10%

Telecommuting Options:

Onsite

Work Location:

USA VA Chantilly

Total Rewards at GDIT:

Our benefits package for all US‑based employees includes a variety of medical plan options, some with Health Savings Accounts, dental plan options, a vision plan, and a 401(k) plan offering the ability to contribute both pre and post‑tax dollars up to the IRS annual limits and receive a company match. To encourage work/life balance, GDIT offers employees full flex work weeks where possible and a variety of paid time off plans, including vacation, sick and personal time, holidays, paid parental, military, bereavement and jury duty leave. To ensure our employees are able to protect their income, other offerings such as short and long‑term disability benefits, life, accidental death and dismemberment, personal accident, critical illness and business travel and accident insurance are provided or available. We regularly review our Total Rewards package to ensure our offerings are competitive and reflect what our employees have told us they value most.

Our Identity Verification Process:

As part of the hiring process, we will ask you to complete an identity verification process that leverages advanced biometrics and artificial intelligence to ensure authenticity and protect against identity fraud. You are expected to be on camera during virtual interviews. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud. By proceeding, you authorize the collection, processing, and use of your biometric data for identity verification and security purposes.

About Our Work:

We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers technology solutions and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community. Our 26,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50+ countries worldwide, offering leading mission‑ready capabilities in AI, cloud, cyber and software development.

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Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans