Senior AI/ML Platform Architect

Raft; McLean (VA); Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare, dental, vision

401(k) matching

PTO + 11 holidays

Education and training benefits

Referral bonuses

Job summary

Raft, a U.S.-based defense tech company, seeks a Staff Engineer for the [R]AIMS platform. You will shape architecture, drive major Epics, and lead by example in distributed systems and AI/ML infrastructure.

This role requires hands-on coding, collaboration with platform leadership, and a focus on scalable, reliable systems deployed across edge and cloud environments. Remote work within the U.S. is supported, with travel up to 25%.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands-on experience building and shipping production software systems across the full stack (frontend, backend, infrastructure, and ML).
• Deep software engineering fundamentals with ability to design and evolve complex systems at scale.
• Exceptional technical communication; lead through influence across engineering, product, and leadership teams.

Responsibilities

• Drive architectural decisions across the [R]AIMS platform, evaluating tradeoffs in performance, scalability, security, and maintainability.
• Lead major technical epics from conception through delivery with clear plans.
• Simplify distributed system architecture as the platform scales while preserving capability.
• Optimize platform performance across edge and cloud deployments; resolve bottlenecks in data-intensive environments.
• Establish engineering foundations and reusable patterns to boost productivity and code quality.
• Mentor engineers, conduct design reviews, and elevate technical execution.

Skills

Distributed systems

Kubernetes

Cloud-native

Technical leadership

Architecture design

Tools

Kafka

Kafka Streams

Apache Flink

Job description

Raft, a U.S.-based defense tech company, seeks a Staff Engineer for the [R]AIMS platform. You will shape architecture, drive major Epics, and lead by example in distributed systems and AI/ML infrastructure.

This role requires hands-on coding, collaboration with platform leadership, and a focus on scalable, reliable systems deployed across edge and cloud environments. Remote work within the U.S. is supported, with travel up to 25%.