Founding AI Engineer

Stem IT; Arlington (VA); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive benefits

Job summary

Stem IT in Arlington, Virginia, is seeking a Founding Engineer to help build a data intelligence platform that converts massive unstructured data into trusted, structured insights using LLMs, Agentic AI, and scalable ML infrastructure. Join as a foundational team member shaping the technical backbone as the company grows.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years of production software and ML experience, with expertise in NLP/LLMs, embeddings, and cloud-native ML pipelines, and a strong track record

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience building production software and machine learning systems.
• Experience designing, deploying, and maintaining production ML models at scale.
• Strong background in NLP, LLMs, semantic search, embeddings, vector databases, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Experience with Python and modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, or similar.
• Hands-on experience with MLOps tooling such as SageMaker, Bedrock, Kubeflow, MLflow, or equivalent.
• Experience building scalable data pipelines and cloud-native applications on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, APIs, and production software engineering best practices.
• Comfortable working in ambiguity and owning projects from concept through deployment.

Skills

NLP

LLMs

Semantic search

Embeddings

RAG

Python

ML frameworks

MLOps tooling

AWS/GCP/Azure

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / ML / Data Science / Engineering

Job description

Hyper-growth AI startup building next-generation data intelligence for commercial and intelligence customers in Arlington, Virginia (hybrid) is looking to add a Founding Engineer to the team. The ideal engineer will help build out transformative platform optimize massive volumes of unstructured data into trusted, structured intelligence utilizing: LLM's, Agentic AI, and scalable ML infrastructure. This person will help build & shape the technical foundation of the company as they continue to grow.

Preferred Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience building production software and machine learning systems.
• Experience designing, deploying, and maintaining production ML models at scale.
• Strong background in NLP, LLMs, semantic search, embeddings, vector databases, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Experience with Python and modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, or similar.
• Hands-on experience with MLOps tooling such as SageMaker, Bedrock, Kubeflow, MLflow, or equivalent.
• Experience building scalable data pipelines and cloud-native applications on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, APIs, and production software engineering best practices.
• Comfortable working in ambiguity and owning projects from concept through deployment.

Nice to Have:

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
• Experience with agentic AI frameworks and autonomous AI systems.
• Experience with Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, or modern cloud data platforms.
• Computer vision, OCR, or multimodal AI experience.
• Publications or applied research in machine learning or AI.
• Experience at an early-stage startup or as one of the first engineering hires.

Package:

• Full-time Direct hire with competitive benefits