Principal, Agentic AI Practice (5450)

SMX; Dover (DE); Remote; USD 173,000 - 272,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Paid time off

Retirement plan

Job summary

SMX is scaling an agentic AI practice to support DoD, Federal Civilian, and IC customers from a remote posture with a Herndon-based team. You will serve as deputy to the practice owner, owning technical direction and field-facing execution, including hands-on prototyping, demonstrations, and proposal leadership.

You’ll partner with growth, delivery, and engineering to shape offerings, drive pipeline, and ensure compliant, winning responses.

Qualifications

• Clearance: Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance, Secret minimum, with TS/SCI eligibility preferred.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related discipline, or commensurate work experience.
• 8+ years in technical sales, sales engineering, or solutions architecture at a strategic level.
• Hands-on agentic AI tooling experience with autonomous coding agents.
• Ability to prototype, integrate, and validate solutions directly.
• Proven technical sales success in high-security, compliance-driven environments.
• Experience as a Solution Architect with full lifecycle customer implementations.
• Ability to lead customer demonstrations and present reference architectures.
• Experience with modern IT practices, DevSecOps, and cloud operations.
• Familiarity with Agile/SAFe methodologies.
• Excellent verbal, written, and visual communication skills.
• Curiosity and problem-solving under ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Second in command for the practice owner and drive technical/commercial direction.
• Own the technical narrative across the opportunity lifecycle as lead technical seller.
• Deliver compelling demonstrations of agentic AI platforms to technical stakeholders.
• Prototype, integrate, and validate agentic AI solutions hands-on.
• Define architectures that integrate agentic AI with SMX’s platform and mission systems.
• Shape practice strategy, offerings, and pipeline prioritization.
• Direct feasibility and hand off build with partners and delivery teams.
• Coordinate cross-functional execution across capture, growth, delivery, and partners.
• Author and review proposals as technical lead to secure compliant wins.
• Build an AI/agentic solutions pipeline across DoW opportunities and IC pursuits.
• Support co-sell with partners, ensuring neutrality and resource commitments.
• Represent SMX in customer briefings and public forums.

Skills

Security clearance

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science

8+ years in technical sales

Hands-on agentic AI tooling

Prototyping & integration

High-security sales

Solution Architect experience

Customer demonstrations

DevSecOps & cloud operations

Agile/SAFe experience

Strong communication

Problem solving in ambiguity

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

SysML

UAF/DoDAF

Job description

SMX is standing up and scaling an agentic AI practice: bringing agentic software engineering (autonomous AI agents that write, test, and modernize code) to Department of War, Federal Civilian, and Intelligence Community customers, with SMX's accreditation and authorization platform as the control and management plane. This role is the deputy to the practice owner and the field-facing technical person for the practice. You are more technical than a seller, more commercial than an architect, and you can build. You carry the load across the full scope of the practice: setting technical direction, shaping and closing opportunities, prototyping and validating solutions with your own hands, and representing the practice owner in customer, partner, and internal forums. You will partner closely with SMX's growth, delivery and technical organizations, which owns their respective parts of execution, while you own the technical field and the go-to-market motion. This is a remote position supporting a Herndon, VA based team.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Second in Command for the practice owner. Represent the practice and carry decisions in customer, partner, and internal settings when the owner is not in the room, and help set and drive the practice's technical and commercial direction.

• Own the technical narrative across the full opportunity lifecycle, from qualification to close, as the practice's lead technical seller.

• Demo, personally. Deliver compelling demonstrations of agentic software engineering platforms (such as autonomous coding agents) to technical and program stakeholders in customer settings.

• Prototype, integrate, and validate agentic AI solutions hands-on to prove feasibility and de-risk delivery before commitments are made to a customer.

• Understand the reference architecture. Develop and communicate architectures that integrate agentic AI with SMX's authorization platform and customer mission systems, articulating the path to ATO across FedRAMP High, IL5, IL6, and air-gapped environments.

• Shape practice strategy. Contribute to offering definition, partner strategy, pipeline prioritization, and the go-to-market motion.

• Set technical direction; hand off the build. Direct and validate feasibility in partnership with SMX solutions architects and the delivery organization, who own execution.

• Drive cross-functional execution across capture, growth, delivery, and partner functions to shape opportunities well and execute strongly against commitments.

• Author and review proposals as a technical lead, and identify the technical resource needs required for compliant, winning responses.

• Build the pipeline. Advance a qualified AI and agentic solutions pipeline of DoW opportunities, with Federal Civilian and IC pursuits as growth vectors.

• Run partner co-sell responsibly. Support co-sell with technology and cloud partners (for example, AWS Marketplace / ACE), navigating partner-neutrality and organizational-conflict-of-interest considerations, and resourcing SME and delivery commitments before reaffirming them to customers or partners.

• Represent SMX externally in customer briefings, industry panels, and thought-leadership sessions, and stay current on advances in agentic AI, LLM tooling, and modern software delivery.

Required Skills & Experience

• Clearance: Ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance, Secret minimum, with Top Secret and SCI eligibility strongly preferred given IC pursuits.

• Education: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, a related discipline, or commensurate work experience.

• Experience: At least eight (8) years in technical sales, sales engineering, or solutions architecture in a corporate or government solutions environment, including time operating at a strategic, executive-facing level.

• Hands-on agentic AI tooling: Demonstrated experience with agentic AI / LLM developer tooling (autonomous coding agents such as Devin, or comparable), with the ability to personally build and demo, not only direct others.

• Builder credibility: Able to prototype, integrate, and validate solutions directly, not only whiteboard them.

• Proven technical sales success in high-security and compliance-driven environments.

• Experience as a Solution Architect with multiple full life-cycle customer implementations.

• Demonstrated ability to personally lead customer demonstrations and present reference architectures to technical buyers.

• Experience with modern IT practices, DevSecOps, and cloud operations (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

• Experience with architectural and implementation-level design and with software development methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, SAFe).

• Excellent verbal, written, and visual communication skills, including the ability to write proposals and present to executives, large groups, and small technical sessions.

• Deep technical curiosity and the ability to problem-solve and create solutions under ambiguity.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience selling or delivering within DoW / DoD, with Federal Civilian and IC relationships a strong plus.

• Familiarity with federal authorization pathways (FedRAMP, IL4/IL5/IL6, ATO) and AWS GovCloud.

• Prior experience standing up a new practice, partner motion, or solution offering from early stage.

• Comprehensive understanding of hybrid architectures and experience developing solutions across varying infrastructure, coding languages, and applications.

• Experience with Systems Modeling Language (SysML) and architecture frameworks such as the Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) and the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF).

• Research and development (R&D) experience.

# LISA1

#CJpost

The SMX salary determination process takes into account a number of factors, including but not limited to, geographic location, Federal Government contract labor categories, relevant prior work experience, specific skills, education and certifications. At SMX, one of our Core Values is to Invest in Our People so we offer a competitive mix of compensation, learning & development opportunities, and benefits. Some key components of our robust benefits include health insurance, paid leave, and retirement.

The proposed salary for this position is:

$172,900—$272,400 USD

At SMX®, we are a team of technical and domain experts dedicated to enabling your mission. From priority national security initiatives for the DoD to highly assured and compliant solutions for healthcare, we understand that digital transformation is key to your future success.

We share your vision for the future and strive to accelerate your impact on the world. We bring both cutting edge technology and an expansive view of what’s possible to every engagement. Our delivery model and unique approaches harness our deep technical and domain knowledge, providing forward-looking insights and practical solutions to power secure mission acceleration.

SMX is an Equal Opportunity employer including disabilities and veterans.

Selected applicant may be subject to a background investigation and/or education verification.

SMX does not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization or immigration related support for this position (i.e. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, E-2, E-3, L-1 and O-1, or any EADs or other forms of work authorization that require immigration support from an employer).