Technical SETA SME – Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP PEOPLE; Bethesda (MD); On-site; USD 113,000 - 188,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance

401(k) Retirement Plan

Education & Learning Opportunities

Mobility Stipend

Employee Referral Program

Job summary

Guidehouse seeks a Senior NLP SETA to provide SME support across the lifecycle of a research program, with emphasis on NLP, LLMs, and AI-driven language processing. You will attend meetings, workshops, and testing events to guide technical execution in data-intensive environments.

The role requires an active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph, a STEM degree, and 8+ years in related fields. Travel is up to 10% and compensation reflects security requirements and experience.

Qualifications

• ACTIVE and MAINTAINED TS/SCI clearance with polygraph.
• Bachelor’s degree in physics, mathematics, CS, or relevant engineering fields.
• 8+ years of work experience in physics, mathematics, CS, or engineering.
• Experience with NLP methods: text classification, NER, topic modeling, information extraction, or transformers.
• Experience developing/evaluating NLP pipelines, including preprocessing, tokenization, training, tuning, and optimization for mission environments.

Responsibilities

• Serve as SME in NLP, including LLMs and language processing technologies.
• Provide lifecycle support for research programs from development to transition; attend meetings and testing events.
• Collaborate across teams on data architectures and analytics for mission environments.

Skills

NLP

AI/ML

Text analytics

LLMs

Systems engineering

Data pipelines

Governance bias

Project planning

Education

Bachelor’s degree in physics, mathematics, computer science, or relevant engineering fields

Master’s or PhD in physics, mathematics, CS, or relevant engineering fields

Tools

Hugging Face

PyTorch

TensorFlow

spaCy

Job description

Job Family

Data Science & Analysis (ESA)

Travel Required

Up to 10%

Clearance Required

Active Top Secret SCI with Polygraph

What You Will Do

The Technical SETA will provide support in the execution of the lifecycle of a research program from development, source selection, execution, closeout, and transition. The Technical SETA will be responsible for attending meetings, workshops, conferences, and testing events as the Subject Matter Expert.

In this role, the Technical SETA will serve as the Subject Matter Expert in Natural Language Processing (NLP), including large language models (LLMs), machine‑language understanding, text analytics, and AI‑driven language processing technologies.

What You Will Need

• An ACTIVE and MAINTAINED TS/SCI Federal or DoD security clearance with a polygraph
• Bachelor’s degree in physics, mathematics, computer science, or relevant engineering fields (electrical, computer, systems, software)
• EIGHT (8) or more years of work experience in physics, mathematics, computer science, or relevant engineering fields (electrical, computer, systems, software).
• Experiences should include, but not be limited to:
• Systems engineering and integration experience in complex, data‑intensive environments
• Knowledge of AI/ML (computer vision, NLP, predictive analytics, LLMs)
• Demonstrated experience with NLP methodologies such as text classification, named entity recognition, topic modeling, information extraction, or transformer‑based architectures
• Experience developing or evaluating NLP pipelines, including text preprocessing, tokenization strategies, model training, fine‑tuning, and optimization for mission environments
• Understanding of data architectures and pipelines for large‑scale analytics/intelligence production
• Familiarity with AI governance, data quality, bias mitigation, and mission assurance in operational NLP/LLM deployments
• Experience creating program plans, work breakdown structures, and milestone schedules

What Would Be Nice To Have

• Master’s degree or PhD in physics, mathematics, computer science, or relevant engineering fields (electrical, computer, systems, software) with FOUR (4) or more years of work experience
• Experience in the Intelligence Community (IC), including requirements, CONOPS, and transition
• Experience managing a multi-disciplinary R&D or T&E team
• Experience as a Project Manager or Deputy Project Manager
• Experience with NLP development tools or frameworks such as Hugging Face, PyTorch, TensorFlow, spaCy, or similar libraries
• Ability to proactively manage multiple, concurrent tasks
• Excellent writing, slide development, and editing skills, including the ability to develop succinct, comprehensive, and understandable documents using complex data from multiple sources for technical and non-technical audiences
• Strong organizational, problem-solving, and time-management skills; detail oriented

The annual salary range for this position is $113,000.00-$188,000.00. Compensation decisions depend on a wide range of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, security clearances, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs.

What We Offer

Guidehouse offers a comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package that reflects our commitment to creating a diverse and supportive workplace.

Benefits Include

• Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance
• Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays
• Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus
• Parental Leave and Adoption Assistance
• 401(k) Retirement Plan
• Basic Life & Supplemental Life
• Health Savings Account, Dental/Vision & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
• Student Loan PayDown
• Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development & Learning Opportunities
• Skills Development & Certifications
• Employee Referral Program
• Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach
• Emergency Back-Up Childcare Program
• Mobility Stipend

About Guidehouse

Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.

Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

If you have visited our website for information about employment opportunities, or to apply for a position, and you require an accommodation, please contact Guidehouse Recruiting at 1-571-633-1711 or via email at . All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodation.

All communication regarding recruitment for a Guidehouse position will be sent from Guidehouse email domains including @guidehouse.com or . Correspondence received by an applicant from any other domain should be considered unauthorized and will not be honored by Guidehouse. Note that Guidehouse will never charge a fee or require a money transfer at any stage of the recruitment process and does not collect fees from educational institutions for participation in a recruitment event. Never provide your banking information to a third party purporting to need that information to proceed in the hiring process.

Guidehouse does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Guidehouse and Guidehouse will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.

Company:

Guidehouse

Level of experience (years):

Senior (5+ years of experience)

Tagged as: Industry, Information Extraction, Language Modeling, Language Understanding, NLP, United States