Senior AI Developer

Digital Links Inc; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Links Inc. in Washington DC seeks a Senior AI Developer to lead design, development, integration, and deployment of AI-enabled applications and services for federal missions.

You will implement LLMs, NLP, RAG pipelines, and secure, scalable production systems with CI/CD, testing, and accessibility in mind.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field and 3+ years in software development.
• Hands-on experience building AI-enabled applications with production-grade APIs.
• Proficiency in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or C#.
• Experience with REST APIs, CI/CD, and automated testing.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development, integration, and deployment of AI-enabled apps and services.
• Integrate LLMs, Generative AI, RAG, NLP, and predictive analytics into production.
• Build AI backend services with vector stores, data platforms, and cloud systems.
• Ensure accessibility and security with secure SDLC practices and audits.
• Collaborate with engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity, and product owners.

Skills

AI development

Python

REST APIs

Agile

Security

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related

Tools

React

Docker

Kubernetes

LangChain

LLMs

Job description

Senior AI Developer

Washington DC - 3 days onsite

Position Summary

The Senior AI Developer will lead the design, development, integration, and deployment of secure, scalable, accessible, and maintainable AI-enabled applications and services. The role involves turning approved AI models and data capabilities into production-ready applications, APIs, workflow automations, and human-in-the-loop solutions supporting Federal Government missions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop full-stack AI applications, APIs, microservices, dashboards, and workflow automations.
• Integrate LLMs, Generative AI, RAG pipelines, NLP, classification models, document intelligence, predictive analytics, agentic workflows, and MCP-based services.
• Build AI backend services integrating with vector stores, data platforms, identity providers, enterprise systems, and cloud services.
• Develop accessible applications meeting Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 Level A/AA requirements.
• Implement human-in-the-loop capabilities, including review queues, approvals, overrides, escalation workflows, feedback mechanisms, audit trails, and role-based access.
• Design and implement secure AI solutions, including prompt-injection protection, secure prompt/context handling, output validation, controlled tool use, and audit logging.
• Develop modular and maintainable code using secure SDLC practices, Git, code reviews, automated testing, and CI/CD.
• Develop and maintain unit, integration, API, regression, performance, security, and accessibility tests.
• Support production deployments, monitoring, incident response, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.
• Contribute to architecture decisions, technical documentation, deployment procedures, runbooks, and knowledge transfer.
• Collaborate with software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity teams, product owners, and other stakeholders in an Agile environment.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline.
• 3+ years of professional software development experience, with significant hands-on experience developing AI-enabled applications.
• Strong programming experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, C#, or similar languages.
• Strong experience with REST APIs, databases, Git, automated testing, CI/CD, and modern software-development practices.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, Generative AI, RAG, NLP, AI/ML APIs, search, automation, or document intelligence.
• Experience designing and integrating AI capabilities into production applications.
• Understanding of application security, secure coding, authentication, authorization, API security, and data protection.
• Experience working in Agile and cross-functional development environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• React, Angular, Vue, Node.js, FastAPI, Flask, Django, Spring Boot, or .NET
• LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, MCP
• Vector databases/stores and semantic search
• Docker, Kubernetes, serverless, Infrastructure as Code, API gateways
• Section 508 / WCAG accessibility development
• Federal Government IT or secure DevSecOps environments
• FedRAMP-authorized cloud services
• Experience with AI governance, AI security, human oversight, auditability, and responsible AI implementation