Senior AI Engineer

Leidos; Maryland; On-site; USD 108,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Leidos is seeking a Senior AI Engineer in the Intel Sector to drive AI/ML capabilities across mission-focused programs. You will design, build, and deploy AI solutions including LLMs, RAG, and knowledge systems, collaborating with mission stakeholders to meet demanding security requirements.

Requirements include a Bachelor’s in computer science and 8+ years of relevant experience, with an active TS/SCI with Polygraph clearance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS or related field required.
• 8+ years of relevant experience preferred.
• Strong proficiency with Python and AI/ML lifecycle knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate operational needs into AI/ML solutions.
• Design, develop, and deploy AI/ML applications and LLM-based capabilities.
• Build scalable data pipelines and evaluation metrics for AI systems.
• Ensure security, funding, and sustainment across the lifecycle of AI capabilities.

Skills

Python

AI/ML fundamentals

LLMs

RAG

Prompt engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science

Job 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.

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. We look forward to learning more about you –

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 only and 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.