AI Implementation Engineer

Compensation: $114,000 - $231,000 / year

Department: Engineering

Location: Arlington, VA

Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT), a leading defense technology company, is seeking an AI Implementation Engineer to be part of our Warfare Systems team and based out of our Arlington, VA or Mount Laurel, NJ location.

The AI Implementation Engineer will design and deliver engineering-focused AI solutions that move beyond demos into reliable, mission‑relevant systems. This role is ideal for an engineer who has extensive experience with commercially available AI tooling/chat, hosting LLM servers and has demonstrated ability to build end‑to‑end capabilities including MCP integrations, RAG pipelines, tool‑using agents, and production‑grade AI workflows.

• All applicants must be able to obtain/maintain an active Secret U.S. Security Clearance.
• On‑site position: at least 3 days in office, based out of our Arlington, VA location or Mount Laurel, NJ location.

• Design and build AI solutions for on‑prem systems in air‑gapped environments, including end‑to‑end agentic AI systems that support planning, reasoning, tool use, and multi‑step execution.
• Integrate models and tools for on‑prem systems: develop integrations across LLMs, APIs, data sources, and Model Context Protocol interfaces.
• Develop retrieval pipelines: build and optimize RAG pipelines that connect models to live knowledge sources.
• Engineer conversational and agentic interfaces—create systems with memory, contextual awareness, adaptive decision‑making, and support for multi‑turn interactions.
• Implement and evaluate AI workflows—translate objectives into pipelines, run experiments, evaluate agent behavior, iterate on prompts and retrieval quality.
• Architect local infrastructure—size, configure, and optimize local CPU/GPU workloads, utilizing quantization techniques.
• Orchestrate disconnected environments—design and maintain offline model update pipelines and local package mirrors.
• Scope and define requirements—gather, document, and validate technical and functional requirements.
• Collaborate across teams—work closely with engineers, technical leads, and stakeholders.
• Support technical quality—contribute to testing, debugging, and performance optimization of AI‑enabled applications.
• Learn and apply emerging practices—stay current on advances in LLMs, agent frameworks, orchestration methods, and AI engineering practices.
• Communicate technical work—document architectures, workflows, assumptions, and implementation decisions.

• 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 preferred.
• 5–10+ years of professional experience in software engineering, machine learning engineering, AI engineering, or related technical roles.
• Proficiency in Python, including core libraries such as Num Py and Pandas.
• Hands‑on experience with production local inference engines such as vLLM, SGLang, Triton Inference Server, or TensorRT‑LLM.
• Experience building software with modern AI/ML frameworks such as PyTorch, Tensor Flow, Lang Chain, Lang Graph, Semantic Kernel, or Auto Gen.
• Experience with Linux hardening (e.g., fapolicy/selinux/fips).
• Experience with commercially available AI tooling/chat and hosting LLM servers (chat/embedding).
• Experience with distributed networking, containerization, and reverse proxy/load balancing/firewalls.
• Ability to work independently on technical tasks while collaborating effectively in a team.
• Agile work environment adaptability.
• Strong leadership and documentation skills.
• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time.

• Experience hosting LLM servers on local hardware.
• Experience with various GPU architectures (NVIDIA preferred).
• Experience with AI Gateways.
• Experience with LLM server optimization (VRAM/layers/quantization/fasttensor/kv‑cache/parallel).
• Experience with LLM tool‑calling and RAG.
• Experience with vector stores and Model Context Protocol .
• Experience with container orchestration.
• Experience managing personnel while maintaining cost and schedule targets.
• Problem‑solving skills for ambiguous situations.

• Generous benefits package.
• Competitive PTO and paid holidays.
• 401(k) with immediate vesting and matching.
• 9/80 optional schedule.
• 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.

IDT is an Equal Opportunity employer.