AI​/ML Engineering Director Fellow

AI/ML Engineering Director Fellow Full-time FAS staff Remote/Hybrid.

Why FAS?

Does FAS sound like an organization that you would be energized to join? Is it aligned to your values?

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) takes quite seriously our role as a beacon and voice for the science community.

FAS has a rich history: after the devastating bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, a group of atomic researchers – deeply concerned about the use of science for malice – created an organization committed to using science and technology to benefit humanity.

FAS is a group of entrepreneurial, intrepid changemakers, forging a better future for all through the nexus of science, technology and talent. As a collective, we are building an organization focused on being impact-driven, customer-focused, and growth-oriented as a force for good in the world.

The FAS Impact Fellowship is a selective fellowship program that supports the development and placement of emerging scientific and technical talent within high-impact roles across government. From education to wildfire resilience, national security, and housing, Impact Fellows are serving across a variety of government agencies in roles that augment existing government teams as they confront some of the greatest scientific and social challenges of our time.

To Sum It Up…

What’s the “elevator pitch” for the role?

The FAS Talent Hub is seeking an Impact Fellow for a 24-month term to join the Department of Information Technology within a state government.

This Gubernatorial Administration has an ambitious vision to become a national leader in responsible, productive use of artificial intelligence (AI). State agencies are eager to explore how AI can improve public services and deliver better outcomes for residents. To turn that momentum into impact, the state is building a new AI Innovation Lab to scale responsible, productive AI across Executive Branch agencies.

To achieve this goal, the state is collaborating with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) to recruit an AI/ML Engineering Director who will lead high-impact projects, expand technical capacity, and help drive the use of AI to modernize public services. This entrepreneurial leader will support innovation across workforce systems and help position the state as a national model for using AI in the public interest.

Current employees of the state are not eligible for this position.

What will some of your responsibilities entail?

As the AI/ML Engineering Director, you will lead technical strategy, delivery, and capacity-building to expand the state’s ability to develop and scale AI solutions. Your work will focus on:

• Identifying areas where state-led AI experimentation can have the greatest impact.
• Identifying systemic barriers – such as gaps in technical expertise, procedural bottlenecks, or infrastructure/architectural limitations – that slow the adoption of AI tools across state government, and developing technical/policy/talent solutions to remove these barriers.
• Shape an emerging accelerator program for agencies starting their AI journeys, shepherding them from business use case definition to helping them deploy to higher environments.
• Collaborate with agencies through AI office hours, solutions architecture sessions, and ongoing guidance to help them find the best fit-for-purpose AI, from models to data patterns.
• Ensure that the AI Innovation Lab's work, from team structure to tech stack, aligns with industry best practices to make sure we offer state agencies the most responsible, productive AI possible.
• Scrub in as needed to build AI solutions alongside agency partners.
• Championing an MLOps strategy for the state’s first AI Innovation Lab, which aims to scale AI pilot projects into ongoing AI products.
• Building longer-term capacity by establishing practices that enable sustained AI adoption, including with and for agentic systems.

Potential Impact

• Design the State’s first AI Innovation Lab, helping to grow a government startup that serves citizens and civil servants alike.
• Increase the State’s ability to run high-priority proofs of concept, evaluate success, and scale into production.
• Expand the…