Early Career R&D AI Researcher, Onsite

About Sandia

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation's premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation, with teams of specialists focused on cutting-edge work in a broad array of areas. Some of the main reasons we love our jobs:

* Challenging work with amazing impact that contributes to security, peace, and freedom worldwide

* Extraordinary co-workers

* Some of the best tools, equipment, and research facilities in the world

* Career advancement and enrichment opportunities

* Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 (work 80 hours every two weeks, with every other Friday off) and 4/10 (work 4 ten-hour days each week) compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting (a mix of onsite work and working from home)

* Generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance
* World-changing technologies. Life-changing careers. Learn more about Sandia at: http://(Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)..gov

* These benefits vary by job classification.

What Your Job Will Be Like

We are seeking researchers to work at the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (job title: R&D Artificial Intelligence). Are you passionate about understanding how software and systems really work under the hood? Do you want to apply your knowledge of AI/ML models and data analytics at scale to understand and secure government software and systems? Do you want to apply your software understanding skills to secure and defend operational AI/ML models?

If so, you will want to consider applying for this opportunity.

As a researcher in Sandia's Civilian Cyber Solutions group, you will understand threats to software, algorithms, and systems in order to defend them. You will contribute technical ideas and implementation - keeping our nation safe from attacks through innovative research and development.

To support Sandia's national security missions, our cybersecurity scientists and engineers engage in a variety of research areas including:

* Manual and automated reverse engineering, vulnerability research, and malware analysis

* Development, fine-tuning, and securing of AI/ML systems

* Network operations, information protection, and resilience strategies

* Development of software tools

* Authentication and authorization

* Threat intelligence

* Hardware/software trust and assurance methodologies

* Virtualization (system and network) and cloud technologies

* Autonomous systems

Due to the nature of the work, the selected applicant must be able to work onsite regularly.

Applicants on this requisition may be interviewed by multiple organizations at Sandia National Laboratories.

Salary Range

$121,900 - $237,800

* Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

* A Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.

* Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance.

Qualifications We Desire

The ideal R&D S&E Artificial Intelligence candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:

* Graduate degree in a relevant computationally-intensive discipline where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation).

* Experience in developing software and AI systems for enterprise and national security applications.

* Demonstrated software development skills and familiarity with modern software development practices.

* Proven ability to work and communicate effectively in a collaborative and interdisciplinary team environment.

Also, for this posting we are seeking individuals with the following experience:

* Graduate degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Data Science, Mathematics or related field.

* Software development and algorithm design skills in Rust, Go, C/C++, Java, Python, or Assembly.

* Strong foundational knowledge of neural networks and data science, with a demonstrated ability to attack and/or defend AI/ML models effectively.

* Experience in training and fine-tuning AI/ML models for various applications.

* Experience utilizing AI coding assistants, such as Claude Code or Open Code, to plan, design, and implement complex software solutions.

* Familiarity and experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), tool-calling, and other agentic applications in AI system security.

* Experience applying large language models (LLMs) or AI technologies to address cybersecurity challenges.

* Understanding of security best practices and methodologies specific to AI/ML systems, including threat…