AI/ML Engineer — Generative AI Mission Systems Remote / Telecommute Jobs

AI/ML Engineer — Generative AI Mission Systems Location: Mainly remote within the United States, with onsite collaboration in Laurel, Maryland, typically one day approximately every six weeks for team-wide sprint planning Clearance: Active final DoD Secret clearance required Citizenship: U.S. citizenship required This position supports a pending contract opportunity and is contingent upon contract award and final customer approval. The anticipated start date is November 2026. Build Applied AI for Secure Mission Software Help turn generative-AI concepts into dependable capabilities used within secure mission-planning and decision-support software. At Rackner, you will integrate large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, agentic AI, prompt-engineering workflows, and inference pipelines into an established software application supporting a high-impact national-security mission. You will work across AI, software engineering, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, and customer technical teams to move capabilities beyond standalone demonstrations and into practical application workflows. This role offers the opportunity to deepen your applied-AI expertise, influence how emerging capabilities are designed and evaluated, and contribute to software where reliability, security, and mission usefulness matter. Work will be performed using customer-provided systems, with virtual collaboration across the engineering team. Periodic onsite attendance in Laurel is required. What You'll Do Design, develop, test, and integrate AI-enabled software capabilities. Build and integrate LLM-enabled capabilities into secure application workflows. Develop or integrate retrieval-augmented generation components. Support agentic-AI capabilities and multi-step workflows. Design and refine prompts, system instructions, and inference workflows. Connect AI capabilities with existing backend services and decision-support processes. Evaluate AI outputs for grounding, reliability, accuracy, and mission usefulness. Develop tests for AI-enabled functionality and support broader integration testing. Demonstrate working prototypes and incorporate technical and user feedback. Document AI designs, workflows, limitations, evaluation results, and implementation decisions. Participate in code reviews, technical reviews, and security-remediation activities. Collaborate with software engineers, security professionals, DevSecOps teams, and customer stakeholders. What You Bring Four or more years working across AI/ML, large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, and prompt engineering. A master's degree or Ph.D. in AI/ML or a related field. Hands-on delivery of LLM-enabled software and RAG capabilities. Practical knowledge of agentic AI, multi-step workflows, or similar orchestration approaches. Familiarity with building or supporting inference pipelines. The ability to explain your technical contributions, design decisions, and results. Strong collaboration and technical-documentation skills. U.S. citizenship and an active final DoD Secret clearance. Ability to attend periodic onsite sessions in Laurel, Maryland. The graduate degree and final Secret clearance are contractual requirements. The RFP does not state that additional experience may substitute for the required degree. Preferred Background Several of the following could strengthen your fit: A track record of moving AI capabilities beyond coursework, personal projects, or demonstrations into operational software. Practical knowledge of evaluating AI outputs and addressing weak grounding, hallucinations, or unreliable responses. Familiarity with secure software-development and DevSecOps practices. Exposure to classified, restricted, disconnected, on-premises, or controlled development environments. Collaboration with backend, cybersecurity, and platform-engineering teams. Work supporting defense, government, aerospace, or other regulated environments. Familiarity with containerized OpenShift or Kubernetes environments. Why Rackner At Rackner, you will have the opportunity to build technology that supports critical defense and public-sector missions. You will work on more than isolated AI experiments or prompt-engineering tasks. This role combines hands-on LLM integration, retrieval and agentic-AI development, secure software delivery, and close collaboration across AI, software, cybersecurity, DevSecOps, and mission-focused teams. Rackner has delivered more than $30 million in recent federal awards and supports mission-critical work across defense, civilian, and public-sector environments. We are looking for an applied AI engineer who can help turn emerging generative-AI capabilities into secure, dependable software with meaningful mission impact. Benefits & Professional Growth Competitive compensation Company-supported certifications aligned with current and future program work 401(k) with 100% company match up