Principal Software Engineer, AI Infrastructure and Platform Lead - Cleared

Overview

Make an Impact Where It Matters Most At Intelliforce, we build mission-driven technology that directly supports national security outcomes. This role sits at the core of our AI, cloud, and software engineering competencies, helping shape the next generation of AI infrastructure used across critical customer missions. You will lead both technology and people, working within a trusted, high-performing organization known for technical depth, long-term program stability, and meaningful impact.

Location:

Emerson

Schedule:

Full-time, standard mission hours

Clearance:
Active Top Secret Clearance with Full Scope Polygraph required

• You design, implement, and optimize large-scale infrastructure supporting AI model inference.
• You lead development and sustainment of production AI services, including retrieval augmented generation, autonomous agents, and emerging AI capabilities.
• You act as technical lead for AI infrastructure initiatives, coordinating work across integrated teams.
• You provide people care through one-on-ones, coaching, and performance feedback for a small team.
• You serve as the team point of contact for contract administration and coordination.
• You define solutions in ambiguous environments and establish technical standards, policies, and governance where gaps exist.
• You drive adoption of new technologies and engineering practices.
• You oversee monitoring, logging, and observability for AI services while ensuring availability, performance, reliability, and security.
• You communicate clearly with stakeholders across technical and leadership audiences.

• Clearance:
  Active Top Secret Clearance with Full Scope Polygraph required.
• Citizenship:
  Must be a U.S. Citizen.

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline is required. Four additional years of relevant experience may be substituted for the degree.
• Twelve or more years of software engineering experience supporting large, complex systems of similar scope and mission impact.

• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating large-scale production systems.
• Deep expertise integrating systems across diverse platforms and technologies.
• Hands-on AWS cloud engineering experience.
• Advanced Kubernetes administration and deployment experience.
• Strong Python development skills.
• Proven experience implementing and scaling observability solutions using APM platforms, Open Telemetry, Grafana, and Prometheus.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives, influence organizational change, and define technical governance.
• Strong communication, stakeholder engagement, and leadership skills.
• Ability to balance hands-on engineering with coordination and people leadership.

• Experience with AI inference serving technologies such as vLLM or LiteLLM.
• Prior experience with agentic frameworks such as Lang Chain.
• Knowledge of vector databases and embedding systems.
• Experience with high-performance computing or distributed systems.
• Proven track record driving both technical and cultural change.

This role works across a modern AI platform stack including Python-based services, Kubernetes orchestration, AWS cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code tooling, AI inference platforms, retrieval augmented generation systems, agent frameworks, observability tooling such as Grafana and Prometheus, and scalable distributed architectures.

Compensation Range: $ - $

• The salary range provided reflects an estimate based on current market trends and may be adjusted based on factors such as the candidate's experience, skills, and qualifications. The final offer will be tailored after a thorough evaluation of the candidate’s background and suitability for the role. Please note that this range is intended as a guideline and is subject to flexibility.

Because you matter—your work, your growth, and your well-being. At Intelliforce, we don’t just push the boundaries of technology—we partner with some of the most mission-driven teams in defense and beyond to solve challenges that truly matter. As a Systems…