Lead AI Engineer - Secure SDLC & LLM Tooling

Talentify; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 108,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos is seeking an AI Engineer to lead AI development within the Cyber & Analytics Business Area. You will guide a 20+ engineering team, build AI/ML tools, and collaborate with stakeholders to advance AI-enabled software and secure deployments.

The role focuses on AI-enabled SDLC architectures, MCC integration, and secure AI practices across DoD environments, with required active clearance and Security+ certification within 90 days of hire.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in a related field with 8+ years of experience; additional experience may substitute for degree.
• Experience designing or implementing AI-enabled SDLC architectures and developer productivity platforms.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and coding agents.
• Experience configuring or extending agentic development platforms and workflow integrations.
• Experience building or securing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers/clients.
• Understanding secure AI development practices and AI governance.
• Experience deploying AI/ML services in containerized environments (Kubernetes/Docker).
• Active Secret clearance with potential for TS/SCI in the future.
• DoD 8570 security certification (Security+) required within 90 days of hire.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI development across a 20+ person engineering team.
• Build AI/ML tools including LLM orchestration and RAG pipelines.
• Collaborate with customers through technical meetings and reviews.
• Design AI system architectures and secure APIs.
• Integrate AI into engineering workflows for requirements, code generation, testing, and release.
• Configure AI agents, plugins, and automation frameworks.
• Develop user guides, API references, and operational playbooks.
• Support deployment and testing of AI-enabled systems in secure environments.
• Optimize AI models for performance and scalability.
• Ensure security compliance with cybersecurity and DevSecOps teams.

Skills

AI-enabled SDLC architecture

AI coding agents

OpenCode extensibility

MCP expertise

Secure AI engineering

Modern AI infrastructure

security clearance

DoD 8570 Security+

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Tools

OpenCode

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Cursor

Aider

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Job description

Leidos is seeking an AI Engineer to lead AI development within the Cyber & Analytics Business Area. You will guide a 20+ engineering team, build AI/ML tools, and collaborate with stakeholders to advance AI-enabled software and secure deployments.

The role focuses on AI-enabled SDLC architectures, MCC integration, and secure AI practices across DoD environments, with required active clearance and Security+ certification within 90 days of hire.