Senior AI/ML Engineer – Forward Deployed Engineer

Digital Links Inc; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Links Inc. in Washington, DC seeks a Senior AI/ML Engineer - Forward Deployed Engineer to lead advanced AI initiatives in a hybrid work model with 3 days onsite.

Responsibilities include building secure AI solutions for Federal/DOL programs from discovery to production, integrating LLMs, RAG, NLP, and data pipelines using Python and cloud tools. Credentials must be verifiable.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in AI/ML, software, cloud, data engineering or architecture.
• 2+ years production experience with GenAI, LLM, RAG, or AI operations.
• Build secure AI solutions for Federal/DOL agencies from discovery through production.
• Strong Python, APIs, data pipelines, cloud, MLOps/LLMOps.
• Experience with LLM integration, RAG, NLP, document intelligence, agents/MCP.
• AI evaluation, security/adversarial testing, Responsible AI and compliance.
• Federal/regulatory environment experience strongly preferred.
• Relevant AI/ML certification required.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deploy secure AI solutions for Federal/DOL agencies from discovery to production.
• Integrate LLMs, RAG, NLP in enterprise applications.
• Design data pipelines and APIs for scalable AI systems.
• Ensure compliance with security, privacy, and accessibility standards.

Skills

AI/ML engineering

GenAI/LLM

Python

MLOps/LLMOps

Data pipelines

Cloud platforms

Security & compliance

Federal/regulatory experience

AI credentials

Job description

Senior AI/ML Engineer Forward Deployed Engineer

Location

Washington, DC Hybrid (3 days onsite)

Security eligibility

US Citizen or Permanent Resident (no H1 or OPT) Must be eligible for and obtain DOL onboarding approval, NACI clearance, PIV, system access, mandatory training completion, and execution of DOL Rules of Behavior and NDA.

Note

Required certification evidence The candidate must hold and provide verifiable evidence of at least one relevant AI/ML credential, such as an Azure AI/Generative AI certification, AWS Generative AI or ML certification, Google Cloud Generative AI/ML credential, Databricks Generative AI Engineer credential, Snowflake data credential, NVIDIA generative AI credential, CAIP, or equivalent.

Skills

• 7+ years AI/ML, software, cloud, data engineering or architecture experience.
• 2+ years production experience with GenAI, LLM, RAG, AI Agents or AI operations.
• Build secure AI solutions for Federal/DOL agencies from discovery through production.
• Strong Python, APIs, data pipelines, cloud, MLOps/LLMOps.
• Experience with LLM integration, RAG, NLP, document intelligence, agents/MCP.
• AI evaluation, security/adversarial testing, Responsible AI and compliance.
• Federal/regulated environment experience strongly preferred.
• Relevant AI/ML certification required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience in federal civilian agencies, especially systems involving PII, CUI, public-facing digital services, grants, enforcement, benefits, claims, or case-management operations.
• Experience with AWS, Azure AI Foundry, Google Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock, GitHub Copilot/VS Code, GitLab, JIRA, and Government-controlled CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with accessibility-by-design and delivery of systems meeting Section 508/WCAG 2.1 A/AA.
• Experience supporting independent testing, red teaming, security assessment, and production ATO activities.

Required Certification Evidence

The candidate must hold and provide verifiable evidence of at least one relevant AI/ML credential, such as an Azure AI/Generative AI certification, AWS Generative AI or ML certification, Google Cloud Generative AI/ML credential, Databricks Generative AI Engineer credential, Snowflake data credential, NVIDIA generative AI credential, CAIP, or equivalent. Evidence must be supplied at onboarding and annually thereafter; self-attestation is not sufficient.