Machine Learning Engineer

CoVar; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

401k with employer contributions

Comprehensive health care

Parental leave

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Flexible schedule

Tuition support

PTO and holidays

Job summary

CoVar in McLean, VA, is seeking a Senior ML Engineer (Technical Lead) to drive end-to-end ML/CV programs for DoD-focused projects. You will own technical delivery from data to deployment while guiding a growing local team and engaging with customers.

The role blends hands-on model development and production engineering with proposal input, technical leadership, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver impactful AI solutions at the edge and in field deployments.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing, building, and deploying ML systems in production.
• Strong leadership and delivering complex DoD-focused projects.
• Proficiency in Python, PyTorch, and data processing.
• Experience with CV architectures, evaluation, and data curation.
• US citizenship and clearance eligibility.

Responsibilities

• Lead DoD-focused ML/CV programs end-to-end from requirements to delivery.
• Own customer relationships, drive roadmaps, and technical demos.
• Remain hands-on 50–70% with data pipelines and production code.
• Contribute to proposals, estimates, and prototypes.
• Publish results and technical reports for classified/unclassified settings.

Skills

ML systems

Computer vision

Python

PyTorch

MLOps

Edge deployment

Leadership

Communication

Security clearance

Education

BS in engineering/CS/math

MS/PhD preferred

Tools

Docker

ONNX

TensorRT

Jetson edge

Job description

Machine Learning Engineer

Location: McLean, VA (hybrid); occasional travel to Durham,NCand customer sites

About CoVar

CoVar is a small AI/ML R&D software company with offices in Durham, NC and McLean, VA, that uses artificial intelligence to solve problems that matter. Our teams build AI/ML solutions that help the DoD detect enemies and threats, help biomedical researchers find new cures, and help monitor machinery to prevent injuries and environmental catastrophes. We are passionate engineers dedicated to pushing the bounds of what AI/ML can do in the real world.

About the Role

We’reseeking a Senior ML Engineer (Technical Lead) with deep hands-onexpertisein machine learning and computer vision, who can also lead DoD-focused programs, own customer engagement, contribute to business development, and help grow and manage a local engineering team in McLean over time.You’lllead end-to-end technical delivery–from data to deployment–while serving as the primary technical point of contact for our customers.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building production-grade ML systems, mentoring engineers, and translating complex technical work into compelling customer outcomes.

What You’ll Do

• Lead programs end-to-end:Scope requirements, set technical strategy and milestones, plan resourcing, manage risks, and deliver results for DoD-focused ML/CV projects.
• Own customer relationships:Run technical discussions, requirement discovery, demos, standing meetings, and briefings with senior stakeholders; turn feedback into clear roadmaps.
• Stay deeply hands-on (50–70%):
  • Build data pipelines, train/evaluate CV models, and write production code.
  • Design, train, and optimize detection/segmentation/tracking models and custom computer-vision pipelines; handle imbalanced data, domain shift, and real-world constraints.
  • Deploy models to production (typically on the edge), instrument for monitoring, and iterate with CI/CD.
• Contribute to business development:Write technical sections of proposals/white papers, help shape capture strategy, provide level-of-effort estimates, and present prototypes.
• Communicate and publish:Present results to high-level DoD and industry customers; author technical reports; publish novel work in classified/unclassified settings when applicable.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience:5+ years designing, building, and deploying machine learning systems in production (8+ preferred). Strongtrack recordleading technical delivery for complex projects.
• ML/CV expertise:
  • Deep understanding of ML fundamentals (e.g., gradient descent, cross-validation, ROC/PR curves, confusion matrices, mAP).
  • Computer vision experience with modern architectures (e.g., YOLO family, CenterNet, RetinaNet, Detectron2, ViTs, segmentation networks), augmentation strategies, and evaluation.
  • Experience with data curation/annotation workflows and dataset quality control.
• Software engineering:Python (NumPy,scipy, pandas/polars),PyTorch(preferred) or TensorFlow, git, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and code quality practices.
• MLOps & deployment:Experiment tracking, Docker, ONNX/TensorRT, deploying inference services tothe edge(e.g., NVIDIA Jetson).
• Communication & leadership:Excellent technical communication, customer-facing experience, and proven ability to lead cross-functional efforts.
• Education:B.S. in engineering, math, computer science, or related field; M.S./Ph.D. preferred.
• Clearance:Eligibility for U.S. security clearance. This requires U.S. citizenship.

Preferred Qualifications (Bonus)

• PriorDepartment of Defenseproject experience, including briefing senior stakeholders and navigating DoD acquisition processes.
• ActiveSecretorTS/SCIclearance; experience working in classified environments.
• Experience managing or mentoring engineers; contributing to hiring and performance development.
• Experience with proposal writing (SBIR/STTR, RFPs), technical volume authorship, and live demos.
• Experience with multi-sensor fusion, signal-processing, tracking, synthetic data generation, domain adaptation, or semi/active learning for data-limited environments.
• Familiarity with edge hardware optimization, and performance profiling.
• Open-source contributions, publications, or patents in ML/CV.

Why This Role Matters

You’llbe a keytechnicalleader in our McLean office–setting technical direction, building a local team, and ensuring our DoD partners see tangible mission impact from AI/ML solutions. If you thrive in high-impact environments where you can both build and lead,we’dlove to talk.

Benefits

• Competitive salary, cash bonus, equity structure, and 401k with employer contributions
• Excellent health care coverage, including dental and vision plans
• Parental leave
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Flexible work schedule
• Tuition support
• PTO and paid holidays

Visit us: www.covar.com