Senior AI Architect: End-to-End LLM & RAG Systems

Steampunk; McLean (VA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Steampunk in McLean, VA seeks a Senior AI Developer to design, build, and optimize advanced AI solutions across predictive, generative, and autonomous systems. You will work across data ingestion, model experimentation, and deployment, collaborating with product teams, LLMOps, designers, and mission stakeholders.

You will implement end-to-end AI components, integrate with enterprise systems and cloud platforms, and ensure secure-by-design, responsible AI practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on software engineering with at least 2+ years in AI/ML or LLM-driven development.
• Proficiency in Python and modern AI frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, LlamaIndex.
• Experience designing production-grade AI applications, including APIs, back-end services, orchestration, and front-end integrations (when needed).
• Understanding of responsible AI principles including safety, fairness, privacy, and model risk mitigation.
• Ability to collaborate across engineering, design, and mission domains.

Responsibilities

• Develop end-to-end AI solutions including LLM-powered apps, predictive ML models, multi-agent workflows, RAG pipelines, and specialized AI microservices.
• Implement reusable AI components, libraries, and APIs that streamline application development and accelerate delivery across programs.
• Integrate AI models with enterprise systems, APIs, data platforms, vector databases, and cloud-native services to deliver scalable mission capabilities.
• Drive iterative experimentation, prototyping, and model improvement cycles in collaboration with Data Scientists and AI Evaluation Scientists.
• Design and implement advanced prompt strategies, context management layers, retrieval systems, and LLM orchestration logic.
• Build scalable inference services, optimize model performance, and collaborate with LLMOps to enable robust deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Translate user needs and mission workflows into intuitive, reliable AI-powered features through active partnership with designers and product teams.
• Implement secure-by-design and trustworthy AI practices, including safety guardrails, input sanitization, content filtering, and integration of evaluation metrics.
• Contribute to internal AI frameworks, code patterns, and shared accelerators that raise delivery quality across the AI & Data Exploitation Practice.
• Mentor junior developers, conduct code reviews, and support engineering excellence across multi-disciplinary AI delivery teams.
• Stay current with emerging AI techniques, libraries, foundation models, and agent frameworks, evaluating their applicability to client missions.
• You will contribute to the growth of our AI & Data Exploitation Practice!

Skills

Python

AI/ML

LLM/Generative AI

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Cloud platforms

API / Backend

CI/CD for AI

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in CS/AI/ML/SE

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Vector databases

Job description

Steampunk in McLean, VA seeks a Senior AI Developer to design, build, and optimize advanced AI solutions across predictive, generative, and autonomous systems. You will work across data ingestion, model experimentation, and deployment, collaborating with product teams, LLMOps, designers, and mission stakeholders.

You will implement end-to-end AI components, integrate with enterprise systems and cloud platforms, and ensure secure-by-design, responsible AI practices.