Senior Defense AI Leader — Agentic ML & Security

McKinsey & Company; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 243,000 - 249,000; Full time

Job summary

McKinsey & Company seeks a senior leader to shape and deliver agentic AI and ML solutions for defense clients across public and private sectors, with engagements spanning San Francisco, Silicon Valley, DC, and other US offices.

You will guide client service teams, set technical direction, ensure security, resilience, and mission assurance, and mentor practitioners to scale production-grade AI in complex environments.

Qualifications

• US citizenship and an active SECRET clearance at time of hire.
• Deep defense sector experience with data and technology environments.
• 7+ years applying data science, analytics, and AI to impact in client-facing settings.
• Experience designing and scaling modern AI solutions, including agentic AI.
• Leadership of multidisciplinary engineering and analytics teams.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills with government and industry partners.
• Willingness to travel 40-80% as required.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI implementation engagements, defining aspirations and technical direction for delivery.
• Architect and lead teams delivering agentic AI systems from use case shaping to secure deployment.
• Span ML, generative AI, semantic layers, and multi-agent systems with defense-grade security.
• Provide problem-solving and vision-setting for complex mission and business needs.
• Build scalable, secure AI foundations for classified and unclassified environments.
• Mentor and develop QuantumBlack and McKinsey AI practitioners across the Defense practice.

Skills

Security clearance

Defense sector experience

Data science & AI in client context

AI solution design & scaling

Team leadership across disciplines

Communication & collaboration

Travel readiness

Tools

AWS

Google Cloud

Microsoft Azure

SQL

Python

LLM orchestration frameworks

Job description

McKinsey & Company seeks a senior leader to shape and deliver agentic AI and ML solutions for defense clients across public and private sectors, with engagements spanning San Francisco, Silicon Valley, DC, and other US offices.

You will guide client service teams, set technical direction, ensure security, resilience, and mission assurance, and mentor practitioners to scale production-grade AI in complex environments.