AI Implementation Engineer

Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT)

AI Implementation Engineer designing and delivering engineering-focused AI solutions at Innovative Defense Technologies. Collaborating in a hybrid role based in Arlington, VA or Mount Laurel, NJ.

Posted 7/27/2026full-timeArlington • New Jersey, Virginia • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $114,000 - $231,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in designing and implementing AI solutions in air-gapped environments, with a strong focus on building modular components, integrating models, and optimizing retrieval pipelines. Proficient in Python and experienced with modern AI/ML frameworks, local inference engines, and containerization technologies.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Python ProficiencyAI/ML Framework ExperienceLocal Inference Engine ExpertiseContainerization ExperienceStrong Leadership Skills

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

PythonNumPyPandasVLLMSGLangTriton Inference ServerTensorRT-LLMPyTorchTensorFlowLangChain

Soft Skills

Strong LeadershipStrong Documentation SkillsAbility to Collaborate EffectivelyAbility to Work IndependentlyAgile Project Management

Tools & Technologies

LinuxAI ToolingLLM ServersDistributed NetworkingContainerization

Industry Keywords

AI EngineeringMachine Learning EngineeringSoftware EngineeringAir-Gapped EnvironmentRetrieval-Augmented Generation

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

FirewallsLinuxNumpyPandasPythonPyTorchTensorflow

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and Build AI Solutions for On-Prem systems in Air-Gapped environment: Design and implement end-to-end agentic AI systems that support planning, reasoning, tool use, and multi-step execution in real-world environments. Build modular, testable components that move from prototype to operational capability.
Integrate Models and Tools for On-Prem systems in Air-Gapped environment: Develop integrations across LLMs, APIs, data sources, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) interfaces to enable intelligent agents to interact with external systems, retrieve context, and take action safely and reliably.
Develop Retrieval Pipelines for On-Prem systems in Air-Gapped environment: Build and optimize Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines that connect models to live knowledge sources, structured data, and enterprise content to improve factual grounding, contextual relevance, and response quality.
Engineer Conversational and Agentic Interfaces for On-Prem systems in Air-Gapped environment: Create conversational systems and intelligent agents with memory, contextual awareness, adaptive decision-making, and support for multi-turn user and system interactions.
Implement and Evaluate AI Workflows for On-Prem systems in Air-Gapped environment: Translate technical objectives into working pipelines, run experiments, evaluate agent behavior, and iterate on prompts, orchestration logic, retrieval quality, and system performance to improve reliability and usability.
Architect local infrastructure to size, config, and optimize local CPU/GPU workloads, utilizing quantization techniques to maximize throughput, etc.
Orchestrate disconnected environments, design and maintain offline model update pipelines, local package mirrors, etc.
Scope and Define Requirements: Gather, document, and validate technical and functional requirements from project artifacts, stakeholders, and mission needs to ensure feasibility, completeness, and alignment with operational goals.
Collaborate Across Teams: Work closely with engineers, technical leads, and mission stakeholders to integrate AI capabilities into broader software and system architectures. Participate in technical reviews, design discussions, and delivery planning.
Support Technical Quality: Contribute to testing, debugging, and performance optimization of AI-enabled applications, including edge cases involving context management, retrieval failures, tool execution, and orchestration logic.
Learn and Apply Emerging Practices: Stay current on advances in LLMs, agent frameworks, orchestration methods, and applied AI engineering practices, and bring that knowledge into practical system design and implementation.
Communicate Technical Work: Clearly document architectures, workflows, assumptions, and implementation decisions so that solutions are maintainable, explainable, and transferable across teams.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Physics, Math, or equivalent full-time professional experience; Master’s Degree in Engineering or other technical field highly desired
5-10+ years of professional experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI engineering, or related technical roles
Proficiency in Python, including experience with core libraries such as NumPy and Pandas
Deep hands-on experience with production local inference engines such as vLLM, SGLang, Triton Inference Server, or TensorRT-LLM
Experience building software with one or more modern AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or AutoGen
Experience with Linux and hardening (fapolicy/selinux/fips/etc)
Experience with commercially available AI tooling/chat
Experience with hosting LLM servers
Experience with hosting different models (chat/embedding)
Experience with distributed networking (reverse proxy/load balancing/firewalls/etc)
Experience with containerization
Ability to work independently on technical tasks while collaborating effectively in a team environment
Ability to shift from one project to another in an agile work environment
Strong leadership capabilities and skills
Strong documentation skills
Ability to travel up to 10% of the time, as needed

Benefits

Comp & perks

Generous benefits package
Competitive PTO
Paid holidays
401(k) with immediate vesting and matching
9/80 optional schedule (2nd and 4th Friday off every month)
Tuition Assistance Reimbursement Program
Professional Development Resources
Pre-Tax Commuter Benefits
Organization-Wide Monthly Tech Connect Events
Annual Employee Recognition Awards
Regular Social Events and Catered Lunches