Lead AI Integration & MCP Tools Architect

Peraton; New Jersey; On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Peraton Labs seeks a Senior AI Integration Developer to lead AI assistant design within an existing RF spectrum monitoring web app for the DoD. You will architect MCP tooling, wire local models (e.g., Ollama) into air-gapped environments, and tune prompts for reliable operation in constrained networks.

You will collaborate with engineers and domain stakeholders, implement MCP tools, and evaluate AI outputs to improve reliability, performance, and user experience across local and cloud

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of experience with a Bachelor's degree; 6 years with a Master's; or 3+ years with a PhD in relevant fields
• Experience deploying locally-hosted models in offline or restricted networks
• Strong understanding of the Model Context Protocol (MCP)
• Prompt engineering for smaller/local models
• Experience with agentic AI patterns and tool chaining
• Familiarity with model selection tradeoffs (capability, context length, quantization)
• Ability to design structured evaluation for AI output and tool performance
• Strong AI UX judgment for tool calls and usefulness
• Proficiency in Python; familiarity with FastAPI or similar frameworks
• Experience with Docker and containerized services
• Familiarity with TypeScript/Node.js for server-side development
• Experience with React for AI assistant or chat UI components
• Experience with Git, CI/CD, and automated testing
• Clear communicator across technical and non-technical audiences
• U.S. Citizen with ability to obtain/maintain Secret clearance
• Candidate should be local to Red Bank, NJ; Basking Ridge, NJ; or Silver Spring, MD locations

Responsibilities

• Design and implement MCP server and tool interfaces exposing application data to the AI assistant
• Deploy locally-hosted models in air-gapped or constrained environments
• Evaluate local models for specific tasks; assess tradeoffs across sizes/families
• Integrate LLM inference endpoints into backend/frontend (local and cloud where applicable)
• Develop and refine system prompts, tool definitions, context management strategies
• Define and execute evaluation frameworks for AI output quality and tool calls
• Identify high-value use cases with domain experts and translate into tool designs
• Maintain backend Python and TypeScript/Node.js services supporting AI functionality
• Document AI architecture, tool schemas, prompts, configurations, and results
• Stay current with evolving local model and MCP ecosystem

Skills

Python

Docker

TypeScript/Node.js

React

FastAPI

Git & CI/CD

MCP & tool schemas

LangChain/LangGraph (DESIRED)

System prompts & context management

AI evaluation & QoS

Unix/Linux tooling

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/IS or related

Master's degree (preferred)

PhD (preferred)

Tools

Ollama

llama.cpp

PostgreSQL

Job description

Peraton Labs seeks a Senior AI Integration Developer to lead AI assistant design within an existing RF spectrum monitoring web app for the DoD. You will architect MCP tooling, wire local models (e.g., Ollama) into air-gapped environments, and tune prompts for reliable operation in constrained networks.

You will collaborate with engineers and domain stakeholders, implement MCP tools, and evaluate AI outputs to improve reliability, performance, and user experience across local and cloud