Lead AI Engineer

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

Job summary

Air is seeking an experienced Lead AI Engineer to head the Agentic AI team in scaling agentic offerings for US government customers. You will oversee architecture, planning, and day-to-day leadership of Data Scientists and ML Engineers, focusing on planning, long-horizon execution, tool use, and inter-agent coordination.

The role requires leading design and productionizing complex agentic systems built on LLMs, with strong emphasis on observability, evaluation, and reliability in fast-paced,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's/Master's/Doctorate in CS/CE/DS or related field.
• Minimum 3 years of experience building and deploying ML/LLM-powered systems in production.
• Minimum 2 years of experience leading or mentoring engineering teams in production environments.
• Advanced software skills in Python.
• Experience with common LLM algorithms and implementations.
• Hands-on experience with AWS and cloud infrastructure.
• Familiarity with Git source control management.
• Ability to work collaboratively with little supervision.

Responsibilities

• Designs and builds multi-agent systems with tool use, memory, routing, and planning.
• Develops Agent Skills and tools as modular, composable services that interact with backend systems, models, and data processing.
• Assist with automated evaluation of agents, skills, and prompts across the product lifecycle.
• Work with Product and Implementation teams to apply agents to customer problems.

Skills

Python

LLMs

Multi-agent systems

Leadership

Cloud infra

Telemetry

Agent frameworks

Agile leadership

Git

US Citizenship

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in CS/CE/DS

Tools

AWS

Claude SDK

OpenAI SDK

Git

Job description

Company Description Air is the leader in Enterprise Readiness. Our mission is to establish readiness as a real-time condition that is continuously achieved. Today, a dangerous Readiness Gap exists between what the front line needs and what is delivered. Our AI-native platform, Air Enterprise Readiness, aligns development, production, delivery, and sustainment into one coordinated execution system for government agencies and industrial suppliers. By revealing true capacity, exposing real constraints, coordinating resources, and executing at the speed of operational demands, the front line gets what it needs to succeed.

Company Description Air is the leader in Enterprise Readiness. Our mission is to establish readiness as a real-time condition that is continuously achieved. Today, a dangerous Readiness Gap exists between what the front line needs and what is delivered. Our AI-native platform, Air Enterprise Readiness, aligns development, production, delivery, and sustainment into one coordinated execution system for government agencies and industrial suppliers. By revealing true capacity, exposing real constraints, coordinating resources, and executing at the speed of operational demands, the front line gets what it needs to succeed.

Job Description We are seeking an experienced Lead AI Engineer to lead our Agentic AI team as we scale our agentic offerings across all levels of the US government. Over the past year, we have seen the rapid adoption of our agent, Ace. We expect Ace to be handling much more complex tasks and workflows end-to-end and/or in cooperation with a human user as time goes on. The team is striving to make Ace an even more effective agent, focusing on planning, reliable execution over longer time horizon tasks, scaled tool use, Ace Skills, memory, and inter-agent coordination. In order to do this job well, we are looking for someone who can demonstrate a project built on LLMs that showcases your skill at getting them to do complex tasks.

• Experience leading agentic system development from ideation through production, including technical design, architecture decisions, and day-to-day leadership of Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers
• Experience integrating and working with LLMs, with a strong understanding of their capabilities and limitations
• Experience integrating and working with agent frameworks like Claude Agent SDK or OpenAI Agent SDK
• Experience building observability, evaluation, and feedback loops for agent behavior (telemetry, prompt evaluation, regression testing, and reliability metrics).
• Experience working in highly ambiguous environments, and operating with urgency
• Lead Agile ceremonies and technical planning for the Agentic AI team

Strong Candidates Have

• Experience designing and deploying complex agentic systems using LLMs
• Hands-on work with multi-agent coordination, routing, and tool orchestration
• Passion for building autonomous and semi-autonomous systems that solve real customer problems

This role is a full-time position located out of our office in Pittsburgh, PA.

This role may require up to 10% travel.

Scope Of Responsibilities

• Designs and builds multi-agent systems with tool use, memory, routing, and planning
• Develops Agent Skills and tools as modular, composable services that interact with backend systems, models, and data processing
• Assist with automated evaluation of agents, skills, and prompts across the entire product lifecycle
• Work with our Product and Implementation organizations to find solutions to our most vexing challenges applying agents to our customer problems

Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship is required

Required Skills

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Data Science, or a related field
• Minimum 3 years of experience building and deploying ML or LLM-powered systems in production environments
• Minimum 2 years of experience leading or mentoring engineering teams in production environments
• Practical experience in building, developing, and productionizing machine learning systems
• Advanced software skills in Python
• Experience with common LLM algorithms and implementations
• Hands-on experience with AWS and cloud infrastructure
• A strong desire to learn and investigate new technologies
• Familiarity with Git source control management
• Ability to work collaboratively with little supervision
• A burning desire to work in a challenging, fast-paced tech environment

Desired Skills

• Current possession of a U.S. security clearance, or the ability to obtain one with our sponsorship
• Experience in or exposure to the nuances of a startup or other entrepreneurial environment
• Experience with Claude Code and GenAI coding best practices.

We firmly believe that past performance is the best indicator of future performance. If you thrive while building solutions to complex problems, are a self-starter, and are passionate about making an impact in global security, we’re eager to hear from you.

Air is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law.