SME AI/ML Engineer

Lever, Inc.; Fort Meade (MD); On-site; USD 200,000 - 215,000; Full time

Job summary

Agile Defense is seeking a Senior AI/ML Engineer to design and integrate AI workflows for mission-critical cyber operations at Fort Meade. You will build LLM/agent orchestration, evaluate models, and implement governance guardrails in a secure, enterprise-scale environment.

You will collaborate with data scientists and mission analysts to translate research into production-ready capabilities, ensuring performance, safety, and compliance for national security applications.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/DS or related; 10+ years of experience; 4 years may be substituted by degree

Responsibilities

• Provide embedded operations support and rapid prototyping for AI/ML-enabled tools for the customer.
• Design and integrate LLM/agent orchestration workflows.
• Tune model routing for cost, performance, and mission fit.
• Develop RAG pipelines, vectors, and memory services for agents.
• Implement tool-broker integrations for secure data/tool access.
• Evaluate, benchmark, and tune models and agent behaviors.
• Partner with data scientists and mission analysts to productionize AI capabilities.
• Implement governance guardrails for agentic workflows and document architectures.
• Research emerging AI tooling to keep capabilities current.

Skills

LangGraph experience

Agno experience

NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit experience

Model inference/serving experience

AI evaluation frameworks

Observability (logs/metrics/traces)

Mission environment experience

Active TS/SCI w/ polygraph

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Data Science or related

Tools

LangGraph

Agno

NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit

NVIDIA NIM

vLLM

Ollama

LiteLLM

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Job description

About Agile Defense

At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. That is why we always look to the future and embrace change with an unmovable spirit and the courage to build for what comes next.

Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility- leveraging a foundation of speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to strengthen and protect our nation’s vital interests.

Requisition #:1921

Job Title: SME AI/ML Engineer

Location: Fort Meade, MD | Onsite

Clearance Level:TS/SCI w/ Polygraph, Must Have Clearance to Start

Job Description

Ready for a challenge that puts you at the center of AI innovation for cyber operations? Are you an experienced AI/ML engineer who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys turning research and prototypes into real mission capability, and wants to help shape how AI is built and delivered across a national mission?

Our team is standing up an AI Enterprise capability - the central hub that mission teams turn to when they want to move an AI solution from prototype to a secure, governed, enterprise-scale service. As a Senior AI/ML Engineer on this team, you will design and integrate the models, agents, and AI workflows that run on that platform, with significant, visible impact on the mission.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Provide embedded operations support, capability integration, and rapid prototyping for AI/ML-enabled tools in support of our customer. Design and integrate LLM/agent orchestration workflows using agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, Agno, and the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit.
• Tune model gateway routing logic to select, evaluate, and optimize across multiple frontier and open-weight models for cost, performance, and mission fit.
• Develop and integrate RAG pipelines, vector databases, and memory services to give agents access to mission knowledge and context.
• Implement MCP (Model Context Protocol)-based tool-broker integrations so agents can safely and securely access enterprise tools and data.
• Evaluate, benchmark, and tune models and agent behaviors; build automated evaluation pipelines to track quality, safety, and performance over time.
• Partner with data scientists and mission analysts to translate research and prototypes into production-grade AI capabilities for the command.
• Implement AI governance guardrails - content/safety filters, policy enforcement, and approval gates - for agentic workflows, and document model/agent architectures and evaluation results for reuse.
• Research and evaluate emerging LLM, agent, and AI tooling to keep the command's AI capability current and adaptable.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related discipline and 10+ years of experience; 4 additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of degree
• Experience supporting mission environments
• Experience with frameworks such as LangGraph, Agno, or the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit
• Experience with model inference/serving platforms (NVIDIA NIM, vLLM, Ollama, LiteLLM)
• Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar tool-broker/integration standards
• Experience with AI evaluation frameworks, model benchmarking, and observability (logs/metrics/traces) for AI workloads
• Active TS/SCI w/ polygraph

$200,000 - $215,000 a year

Our Core Values

Employees of Agile Defense are our number one priority, and the importance we place on our culture here is fundamental. Our culture is alive and evolving, but it always stays true to its roots. Here, you are valued as a family member, and we believe that we can accomplish great things together. Agile Defense has been highly successful in the past few years due to our employees and the culture we create together.

What makes us Agile? We call it the 6Hs, the values that define our culture and guide everything we do. Together, these values infuse vibrancy, integrity, and a tireless work ethic into advancing the most important national security and critical civilian missions. It's how we show up every day. It's who we are.

• Happy - Be Infectious. Happiness multiplies and creates a positive and connected environment where motivation and satisfaction have an outsized effect on everything we do.
• Helpful - Be Supportive. Being helpful is the foundation of teamwork, resulting in a supportive atmosphere where collaboration flourishes, and collective success is celebrated.
• Honest - Be Trustworthy. Honesty serves as our compass, ensuring transparent communication and ethical conduct, essential to who we are and the complex domains we support.
• Humble - Be Grounded. Success is not achieved alone, humility ensures a culture of mutual respect, encouraging open communication, and a willingness to learn from one another and take on any task.
• Hungry - Be Eager. Our hunger for excellence drives an insatiable appetite for innovation and continuous improvement, propelling us forward in the face of new and unprecedented challenges.
• Hustle - Be Driven. Hustle is reflected in our relentless work ethic, where we are each committed to going above and beyond to advance the mission and achieve success.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities