SETA AI Engineer

Cornerstone Defense LLC; Columbia (SC); On-site; USD 220,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental and Vision Plans

Generous PTO

401(k)

Tuition Reimbursement

Life Insurance

Job summary

Cornerstone Defense LLC in Columbia, MD is seeking a SETA AI Engineer to guide AI-enabled applications and workflows for government missions. The role requires hands-on expertise with modern AI systems, LLMs, and agentic architectures, delivering technical briefs and prototypes to government stakeholders.

The candidate will review architectures, assess risks, and ensure secure, reliable AI solutions. Collaboration with platform teams and leadership is essential to align with mission needs.

Qualifications

• 18 years of experience with a BS or 15 years with a MS in CS/Engineering/Data Science or related field.
• Experience designing, building, or evaluating AI/ML-enabled applications or software tools.
• Familiarity with LLM-based applications, RAG, prompt engineering, agentic workflows.

Responsibilities

• Provide SETA technical advisory support for AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows.
• Evaluate AI frameworks, agentic libraries, and cloud environments for mission suitability.
• Review architectures, model usage, and risks; deliver briefs and prototypes to stakeholders.
• Collaborate with platform engineers and leadership to ensure mission-aligned AI solutions.
• Translate complex concepts into clear government-facing communication.

Skills

AI/ML-enabled apps

LLMs

Agentic workflows

Orchestration

Cloud AI environments

Python

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/Data Science/Math

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

Semantic Kernel

AutoGen

CrewAI

Haystack

LlamaIndex

Job description

Title: SETA AI Engineer
Location: Columbia, MD
Compensation Range: $220 -$250K
Clearance:Active TS/SCI w/ Polygraph needed to apply

Company Overview: Cornerstone Defense is the Employer of Choice within the Intelligence, Defense, and Space communities of the U.S. Government. Realizing early on that our most prized assets are our employees, we continually focus our attention on improving the overall work/life experience they have supporting the mission. Our Team is pushed every day to use their industry leading knowledge to provide end-to-end solutions to combat our nation’s toughest and most secure problems. If you are looking for a place to not only be professionally challenged, but encouraged and supported by a company that cares, don’t look any further than Cornerstone Defense.

Benefits Overview: Cornerstone Defense offers a very comprehensive benefits package including, but not limited to: Medical, Dental and Vision Plans * Generous PTO Policy * 401(k) * HSA and FSA options * Life and Disability Insurance * Tuition Reimbursement and Training * Perks at Work Discount Program * Referral Program * Leads Generation Program * CollegeAmerica 529 * Fitness Reimbursement Program * Travel Assistance * Norton Lifelock Benefit Solutions * Life Planning Financial & Legal Services *

Position Description:

Seeking an AI Engineer to provide technical advisory support for the design, evaluation, and advancement of AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows. This role is intended for a hands-on technical professional who understands how modern AI systems are built and can help guide teams developing practical solutions using large language models, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and supporting software infrastructure.

Core Tasks:

• Provide SETA technical advisory support to government teams designing, developing, evaluating, and integrating AI‑enabled applications, tools, and workflows.
• Assess and advise on solutions involving large language models, retrieval‑augmented generation, prompt pipelines, agentic systems, orchestration layers, and evaluation harnesses to ensure mission suitability.
• Review architectures, development approaches, model usage patterns, and technical risks; deliver engineering recommendations, prototypes, guidance, and technical briefs for government stakeholders.
• Evaluate modern AI frameworks, agentic libraries, experimentation harnesses, vector databases, embeddings, inference pipelines, and cloud‑based AI environments for suitability in mission applications
• Support test and evaluation activities including performance analysis, qualitative assessments, workflow validation, and guardrail reviews.
• Advise on AI engineering considerations such as latency, reliability, observability, testability, secure development, data flow, system integration, and operational constraints in government environments.
• Collaborate with platform engineers, mission users, product leads, and leadership to ensure AI solutions are technically grounded, mission‑aligned, and operationally relevant.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear communication for government audiences, including tradeoff analysis, risk identification, emerging trends, and engineering implications.
• Maintain up‑to‑date knowledge of the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem; provide continuous recommendations on emerging tools, practices, frameworks, and development patterns.
• Support development of knowledge repositories, engineering documentation, evaluation artifacts, and AI assurance products.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 18 years of experience with a Bachelor’s degree, or 15 years with a Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline.
• Experience designing, building, integrating, or evaluating AI/ML‑enabled applications or software tools.
• Familiarity with LLM‑based applications, RAG, prompt engineering, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and modern AI application patterns.
• Working knowledge of frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI, Haystack, LlamaIndex, or similar ecosystems.
• Experience with software development fundamentals including APIs, data handling, and system integration.
• Ability to assess technical tradeoffs and communicate them effectively to technical and government stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred:

• Experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or similar languages used in AI development.
• Familiarity with vector databases, embeddings, model APIs, evaluation frameworks, and agent testing harnesses.
• Exposure to model hosting, inference pipelines, or cloud‑based AI development environments.
• Understanding of secure AI development practices and data protection requirements in government settings.
• Experience supporting defense, cyber, intelligence, or mission‑focused development.
• Familiarity with human‑in‑the‑loop workflows, AI assurance, and evaluation methodologies.