Senior AI Engineer

Leidos; Fort Meade (MD); On-site; USD 108,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive benefits

Flexible schedules

Education and training support

Job summary

Leidos is seeking a Senior AI Engineer in the Intel Sector to advance AI/ML capabilities for national security missions. You will translate operator needs into secure, scalable AI solutions, including LLMs, RAG, vector search, and knowledge systems.

Requirements include a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and 8+ years of relevant experience, strong Python skills, and full understanding of the AI lifecycle from data to deployment. TS/SCI with polygraph is required.

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in computer science and relevant AI/ML experience.
• Strong proficiency with Python and proven AI/ML solution design experience.
• Understanding of the full AI lifecycle from data ingestion to deployment and sustainment.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with mission stakeholders to translate requirements into AI/ML solutions.
• Design, develop, and optimize AI/ML applications using Python and modern frameworks.
• Develop LLM applications, RAG architectures, vector search, and knowledge retrieval systems.

Skills

Python

AI/ML

AI lifecycle

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science

Job description

Description

Leidos has new and exciting opportunities for a Senior AI Engineers in our Intel Sector. Our talented team is at the forefront in Security Engineering, Computer Network Operations (CNO), Mission Software, Analytical Methods and Modeling, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and Cryptographic Key Management. At Leidos, we offer competitive benefits, including Paid Time Off, 11 paid Holidays, 401K with a 6% company match and immediate vesting, Flexible Schedules, Discounted Stock Purchase Plans, Technical Upskilling, Education and Training Support, Parental Paid Leave, and much more. Join us and make a difference in National Security!

Job Summary:

Our program provides our customer's Operations organization with the best possible solutions for their mission needs. We achieve this through rapid prototyping, new development, and advanced technology research. From leading-edge visualizations to analytic development, we're always pushing the boundaries to find new and better data sources and tradecraft to answer intelligence questions. With a focus on collaboration and a fast-paced environment, our prototype development program is the ideal place to grow your skills and make a real impact. Click here to learn more about how this program “Delivers Mission Success!”.

Seeking motivated Senior AI Engineers to support high-impact mission opportunities applying Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to complex data and analytic challenges. Engineers will work with mission stakeholders to translate operational needs into secure, scalable AI capabilities spanning machine learning, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), agentic AI, and advanced knowledge systems. The ideal candidate combines strong AI/ML fundamentals with hands‑on engineering experience and understands how to evaluate, deploy, secure, and sustain AI capabilities throughout their lifecycle.

Job Responsibilities/Qualifications:

• Mission Focus: Collaborate with mission stakeholders, analysts, data scientists, and engineers to understand operational challenges and translate requirements into effective AI/ML solutions. Design and develop capabilities for knowledge extraction, information discovery, summarization, decision support, workflow automation, and analysis of structured and unstructured data. Build solutions capable of processing large, complex, and potentially multilingual datasets while ensuring that AI-generated results are relevant, traceable, and useful to mission users.
• Technical Proficiency: Design, develop, integrate, test, and optimize AI/ML applications using Python and modern AI frameworks. Apply supervised, unsupervised, semi‑supervised, and deep learning techniques, including classification, clustering, recommendation approaches, neural networks, and transformer architectures. Develop LLM applications using prompt engineering, embeddings, context management, chunking, and retrieval techniques. Design RAG architectures incorporating document ingestion, vector search, metadata, reranking, and hybrid semantic/keyword retrieval. Develop agentic AI workflows capable of task planning, tool use, multi‑step execution, workflow automation, and multi‑agent coordination. Build data pipelines supporting preprocessing, feature extraction, data validation, deduplication, labeling, and augmentation. Optimize models through model selection, fine‑tuning, hyperparameter tuning, benchmarking, and latency‑versus‑accuracy analysis.
• Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, plus 8‑years of relevant experience or equivalent. Strong proficiency with Python and demonstrated experience designing or developing AI/ML solutions. Understanding of the complete AI lifecycle from data ingestion and model development through deployment, monitoring, and sustainment.
• Security Clearance: Active TS/SCI with Polygraph required to be considered for this role.
• Desirable Skills: Knowledge of customer corporate tools, data repositories, and secure mission computing environments is highly desirable. Experience with Large Language Models and Generative AI, including tokenization, embeddings, attention concepts, prompt engineering, context management, and LLM interfaces. Experience developing or integrating RAG, vector search, or knowledge retrieval systems. Understanding of machine learning and statistical fundamentals, model training and validation, performance metrics, bias/variance considerations, and experimentation. Experience evaluating AI systems for accuracy, relevance, groundedness, hallucination, robustness, and scalability.

At Leidos, the opportunities are boundless. We challenge our staff with interesting assignments that allow them to thrive professionally and personally. For us, helping you grow your career is good business.

Original Posting:

September 8, 2026

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range

Pay Range $107,900.00 - $195,050.00

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline onlyand not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

About Leidos

Leidos is an industry and technology leader serving government and commercial customers with smarter, more efficient digital and mission innovations. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with 47,000 global employees, Leidos reported annual revenues of approximately $16.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 3, 2025. For more information, visit www.Leidos.com.

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers. Employment benefits include competitive compensation, Health and Wellness programs, Income Protection, Paid Leave and Retirement. More details are available at www.leidos.com/careers/pay-benefits.

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Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.