AI Systems Engineer

KBR Careers; Chantilly (VA); On-site; USD 153,000 - 191,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401K plan with company match

medical

dental

vision

life insurance

flexible spending account

disability

paid time off

flexible work schedule

Job summary

KBR is looking for a visionary AI Systems Engineer to provide critical technical services to the U.S. Government. This position involves shaping, designing, and deploying AI and Machine Learning initiatives for national security.

The ideal candidate will curate commercial technologies, build proof-of-concept models, and manage large datasets. A clear understanding of AI/ML concepts and exemplary communication skills are essential.

Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance required.
• Experience with complex enterprise datasets is essential.
• Exceptional ability to translate AI concepts for non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define the AI/ML roadmap for the Government office.
• Design and build high-impact proof-of-concept models.
• Work with enterprise datasets for AI training.

Skills

AI/ML concepts

Natural Language Processing

Statistical modeling

Prototype building

Communication skills

Data curation

Education

Bachelor's degree with 5+ years experience

Master's degree with 3+ years experience

PhD with 0+ years experience

Tools

Python

R

llama.cpp

LangChain

Hugging Face

Job description

Title: AI Systems Engineer

Title: AI Systems Engineer KBR is seeking a visionary AI Systems Engineer to join our team, providing critical technical services to the U.S. Government (USG). This role supports a dedicated USG Program Office, in shaping, designing, and deploying cutting‑edge AI and Machine Learning (AI/ML) initiatives for national security space architectures. Position Overview As an AI Systems Engineer, you will serve as both a hands‑on technical architect and a strategic advisor. You will leverage the Government customer’s massive enterprise datasets, spanning complex program budgets, scheduling, and financials, to build proof‑of‑concept models (including Large Language Models and financial predictive tools). You will lead the evolution of the AI roadmap by identifying cutting‑edge commercial technologies and directing successful prototypes into robust, production‑ready enterprise tools.

Responsibilities

• Strategic LLM Initiatives: Help shape and define the AI/ML roadmap for the Government customer office. Guide the government on how to securely build, adopt, govern, and maintain foundation models and custom LLMs across sensitive environments, ensuring robust model lifecycle management.
• Rapid Prototyping: Design and build hands‑on, high‑impact proof‑of‑concept models. This includes training, fine‑tuning, and leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) for search, summarization, and business intelligence, as well as developing advanced financial, budget, and scheduling analysis models.
• Data Exploitation: Work directly with massive, unstructured and structured enterprise datasets (financials, acquisition timelines, schedules, program execution metrics). Clean, curate, and pipeline this data to create high‑quality training corpora, instruction‑tuning datasets, and knowledge bases for Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) to discover trends, anomalies, and optimization opportunities.
• Technology Curation & Scouting: Actively scout the commercial tech sector, academia, and open‑source communities for breakthroughs in generative AI, NLP, and predictive analytics. Curate a pipeline of high‑performing external groups and technologies for USG consideration.
• Contractor & Vendor Management: Formulate technical recommendations, draft statements of work, and establish the system integration requirements needed to bring external contractors on board to scale and operationalize your prototypes.
• Technical SETA Advisory: Provide objective technical evaluation of contractor proposals, designs, and deliverables to ensure they align with government AI safety, security, and performance standards. This includes overseeing LLM red‑teaming, bias testing, hallucination mitigation, and ongoing alignment evaluations.

Work Environment

• Location: On‑Site (Chantilly, VA area)
• Travel Requirements: Minimal (0-20%)
• Working Hours: Standard

Required Qualifications

• Clearance: Active TS/SCI with Polygraph.
• Education & Experience: Bachelor’s degree with 5+ years of relevant experience, Master’s degree with 3+ years of relevant experience, or PhD with 0+ years of relevant experience.
• Technical Skills: Strong foundations in AI/ML concepts, natural language processing (NLP), and statistical modeling.
• Prototyping Experience: Demonstrated experience building prototypes using Python, R, or similar tools, specifically with frameworks related to LLMs (e.g., llama.cpp, LangChain, Hugging Face) or data analytics.
• Analytical Skills: Experience working with complex enterprise datasets (e.g., financial, resource planning, schedule networks, or programmatic data).
• Communication: Exceptional ability to translate highly technical AI concepts—such as LLM training methodologies, RAG architecture, model alignment, and corpus curation—into strategic, actionable business recommendations for non‑technical executives and government leaders. This includes clearly articulating the compute costs, security risks, data provenance, and ongoing maintenance requirements involved in building versus adopting language models.

Desired Qualifications

• Financial & Schedule Modeling: Experience applying ML or advanced statistical modeling to predictive financial analysis, budget execution, risk modeling, or project scheduling.
• Enterprise AI Deployment: Understanding of the challenges of deploying AI/ML models in high‑security, air‑gapped government cloud environments (e.g., AWS C2S).
• Technology Scouting: Prior experience in technology scouting, venture capital technical vetting, or acting as an industry‑to‑government technology transition agent.
• Acquisition Support: Familiarity with the DoD/IC acquisition lifecycle, systems engineering processes, and SETA advisory roles.

Basic Compensation

$152,600 - $190,700 This range is for the Virginia area only The offered rate will be based on the selected candidate’s work location, knowledge, skills, abilities and/or experience, clearance level, contract affordability and in consideration of internal parity.

KBR Benefits

• 401K plan with company match
• medical
• dental
• vision
• life insurance
• AD&D
• flexible spending account
• disability
• paid time off
• flexible work schedule
• We support career advancement through professional training and development.

Belong, Connect and Grow at KBR At KBR, we are passionate about our people and our Zero Harm culture. These inform all that we do and are at the heart of our commitment to, and ongoing journey toward being a People First company. That commitment is central to our team of team’s philosophy and fosters an environment where everyone can Belong, Connect and Grow. We Deliver – Together.

KBR — Delivering Solutions, Changing the World.

KBR brings together the best and brightest to deliver science, technology and engineering solutions that help governments and companies around the world accomplish their most critical missions and objectives. In everything we do, we are guided by our ONE KBR Values: We Value Our People – We create diverse, inclusive environments in which each person can feel safe, respected and valued, and where everyone has opportunities to grow and reach their full potential. We Deliver – We are uncompromising in our commitment to deliver innovative, high‑quality, technology‑led solutions for our customers and exceptional, sustainable value for all our stakeholders. We Are People of Integrity – We value honesty, trust, courage, fairness, prudence and tenacity. We believe doing what’s right for the planet, the communities where we work, and our people is good for business. We Empower – We empower our people with a shared purpose, the right tools and the supportive culture they need to be proactive decision‑makers, to be adaptive to change, and to succeed. We Are a Team of Teams – We have a will to succeed, but we value the achievements of our team of teams over individual accomplishments. Our collective focus makes us a better, stronger, more effective company. We have also embedded environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in every business operation and corporate function. Not only are we committed to operating safely, sustainably and equitably, but we are also committed to using our capabilities and expertise to help our customers accomplish their sustainability goals. Worldwide, KBR employs a diverse workforce approximately 29,000 people strong, with customers in more than 80 countries and operations in 40 countries. At KBR, We Deliver.

KBR is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin, veteran status, genetic information, union status and/or beliefs, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.