Senior Software Engineer – AI Infrastructure

• Laurel, MD

** An active TS//SCI clearance with polygraph is required for this role **

Bitwise is a leading provider of mission-focused intelligence solutions that advance national security for the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense. We're a small and growing company, so you can expect to hop in on the ground floor with us and be a consequential member of the team. You'll be more than a contract performer for us — you'll also be asked for ideas to improve our company and improve your career, and you'll contribute to our team culture.

We value growth and community above almost all else, so we gather regularly for game nights, happy hours, tech talks, and plenty more. We think you'll like it here!

Remember, Bitwise is not a cult.

Bitwise hires talented engineers who are driven by purpose and who value a culture of technical excellence, growth, and overall wellness. We deliver new and innovative intelligence solutions to our customers at the very forefront of our country's national security missions. And we do it every single day. Our work matters, and so will you.

We ask that every new hire be able to:

• Contribute meaningful thought leadership — if not right away, over time
• Interact with our customers and earn their confidence in your abilities
• Be detailed, even if that means taking a little more time to get it right
• Contribute their ideas and ideals to improve all aspects of our company
• Allow us to invest in their education so we both grow together

This is a senior-level full-stack engineering role at the heart of a growing AI platform organization — and it's not just a coding job. You'll be building and operating the infrastructure that powers next-generation AI capabilities for a mission-critical customer, while also stepping into a technical leadership position that shapes how the team works and grows.

You'll lead development of production AI services — think retrieval augmented generation (RAG), autonomous agents, and scalable model inference — while also owning the reliability, observability, and security posture of the platform. You'll set technical direction, define policies and governance frameworks where none yet exist, and drive adoption of new technologies across engineering teams. When things are ambiguous (and they will be), you'll be the one who brings clarity.

On top of the technical work, you'll serve as a people lead for a small, integrated team — running one-on-ones, providing coaching and feedback, and acting as the point of contact for contract administration functions. You're the kind of engineer who can context-switch between a Kubernetes cluster and a career conversation, and you do both well.

This role is based in Laurel, MD.

• 12 years of experience in software engineering, or a B.S. in a technical discipline plus 8 years of experience
• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating large-scale production systems
• Deep expertise in systems integration across diverse technologies and platforms
• Hands-on experience with cloud engineering in AWS
• Advanced proficiency with Kubernetes administration and deployment patterns
• Experience implementing and scaling observability solutions, including APM, Open Telemetry, Grafana, and Prometheus
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives and influence organizational change
• Experience developing technical policies and governance frameworks
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills
• Demonstrated ability to balance hands-on engineering with leadership and coordination responsibilities
• Active TS//SCI clearance with polygraph
• Experience with AI inference serving technologies such as vLLM or LiteLLM
• Previous experience with agentic…