Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer 1 - (NLP, AWS, PyTorch) Software Engineer/Developer 25-8967-AIML1 Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Akina Inc; Annapolis (MD); On-site; USD 170,000 - 208,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO 24 days

Holidays 11

401k vesting 10%

Healthcare coverage

Education assistance

Job summary

Akina Inc. in Annapolis Junction, Maryland seeks an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer I specializing in NLP, AWS, and PyTorch.

The role requires TS/SCI with polygraph within 7 years and involves designing, training, and deploying scalable AI/ML solutions across data pipelines and production systems. You will collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and product teams to translate business needs into robust models, evaluate performance, and implement monitoring.

Qualifications

• Two years of applied ML experience required.
• Bachelor's degree in advanced math or CS required.
• Knowledge of NLP and language models preferred.
• Experience with AWS SageMaker, Git, and ML tooling.
• Ability to collaborate with data scientists and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Build, train, and fine-tune language models.
• Deploy models on AWS SageMaker.
• Design deployment pipelines with engineers.
• Evaluate model performance and iterate.
• Collaborate with data scientists and product teams.
• Document workflows and design decisions.

Skills

Language models

Marian NLP

Multilingual NLP

DL containers

GPUs

Model training

AWS SageMaker

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Kubernetes

C/C++

AI/ML frameworks

Education

B.S. in advanced math/CS

Tools

AWS SageMaker

Docker

Git

MLFlow

Kubernetes

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Hugging Face

Job description

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer 1 - (NLP, AWS, PyTorch)

• Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer 1 - (NLP, AWS, PyTorch)

Clearance: TS/SCI - Polygraph required within 7 years
Location: Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Description:

Designs, creates, tests, and productizes AI/ML algorithms to solve business challenges and support customer requirements.

Works across model architecture, data pipeline interaction, and metrics application, interpretation, and presentation; requires familiarity with application development, infrastructure management, data engineering, and data governance.

Uses training, retraining, deploying, scheduling, monitoring, and iterative improvement to create scalable solutions, and may lead geographically diverse teams as a primary POC for AI-related matters.

• Build, train, and fine-tune machine learning models, particularly language models
• Apply best practices in model training, tuning, and optimization
• Design and implement solutions for model performance improvement
• Conduct rigorous model evaluation, including performance analysis and benchmarking
• Perform error analysis, debugging, and model diagnostics to ensure quality and reliability
• Work with cloud-based AI platforms, especially AWS Sagemaker, to deploy and scale models
• Integrate machine learning models into production environments, ensuring seamless integration with other systems
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of the full stack for AI model-based applications (front-end and back-end)
• Collaborate with software engineers to build scalable and efficient deployment pipelines
• Work closely with data scientists, product teams, and engineers to translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Document workflows, model design processes, and technical specifications
• Perform statistical analysis
• Run machine learning algorithms
• Use results to improve models
• Train and retrain systems when needed
• Run standard test and evaluation protocols
• Provide system integration oversight

Position Required Skills:

• Knowledge and experience of language models, including Marian and multi-lingual model development
• Knowledge of computational linguistics
• Experience with open-source model libraries
• Deep Learning Containers (DLC) and GPU technologies
• Optimization and tuning
• Strong Java, C, and C++ programming experience
• Strong proficiency in AI/ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, or Hugging Face
• Hands-on experience with AWS tools like SageMaker, Lambda, EC2, and S3
• Solid understanding of data structures, algorithms, and system design
• Extensive experience in machine learning model development, including natural language processing (NLP)
• Experience with model evaluation, optimization, and performance monitoringExperience with model versioning and management using tools such as MLFlow or Git
• Familiarity with containerization tools such as Kubernetes

Position Desired Skills:

• Willingness to support occasional on-call duties
• Experience in a government or defense-related environment
• Experience with secure data handling and compliance requirements
• Experience working with Large Language Models (LLMs)

AIML1 Qualifications:

Two (2) years experience in applied machine learning in programs and contracts of similar scope, type, and complexity is required.

A B.S. degree in advanced math (e.g., calculus, linear algebra or Bayesian statistics), computer science or related STEM discipline from an accredited college or university is required.

Three (3) years of additional machine learning experience on projects with similar machine learning processes may be substituted for a bachelor’s degree.

Salary Range: $170k-$208k (Annually)

The range displayed above is a likely salary range for this position. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possible contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.

Akina is a Woman Owned, Service Disabled, Veteran Owned, Small Business, looking for talented and ambitious individuals to join our team. We offer a generous compensation package that includes 24 days PTO accrued annually and 11 federal holidays. Our 401k is 100% vested on your start date and the company makes a direct contribution worth 10% of your salary. Akina covers 100% of healthcare costs for employees and 50% toward dependents. We offer educational assistance towards college classes and will cover costs associated with job related training and certifications.

Akina is committed to excellence and creating innovative and flexible solutions for our clients. We are a small company with an open ear to our employees' needs in order to attract and retain quality talent that enables our customer's mission.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.