Raft

Defense Tech

AI/MLEngineer

$125–175k ~AI est. Rome, New York, United States
Market Sentiment
HIGH DEMAND

Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Mid+ candidates.

The Brief

“AI/ML Engineer at Raft. Skills: AI/ML, Model Development, MLOps, Platform Engineering. Build and evaluate ML models. Understand requirements”

What You'll Achieve.

Reproducible results; Traceable results; Maintainable integrations; Shorten experimentation gap; Build infrastructure and workflows

Industry & Context.

Defense Tech
Problems you'll solve

Diagnose failure modes; Troubleshooting

Eligibility Requirements

U.S. citizenship, Work in continental U.S., 25% travel, Top Secret/SCI clearance

What They're Looking For.

Must Have

3 to 6 years experience, Python software engineering, Develop and evaluate ML models, Build and manage training pipelines, Work with distributed systems, Obtain Security+ certification, U.S. citizenship, Obtain Top Secret/SCI clearance

Nice to Have

Fine-tuning foundation models, Experience designing evaluation frameworks, Experience with Kubernetes, Experience with distributed training, Familiarity with streaming architectures, Experience building secure AI systems, Familiarity with RMF, Familiarity with IL requirements

What You'll Do.

Build and evaluate ML models

Understand requirements

Translate requirements to solutions

Develop model training workflows

Maintain model training workflows

Build evaluation pipelines

Integrate models into infrastructure

Ensure containerized deployments

Ensure observable deployments

Ensure sustainable deployments

Support experimentation

Maintain records of results

Surface actionable findings

How You'll Work.

Team & Collaboration

Platform engineers; AI leadership; Mission stakeholders; Government researchers; Distributed team

Communication Scope

Briefing stakeholders; Technical documentation; Status updates; Evaluation summaries

Full Job Description

This is a U. S. based position. All of the programs we support require U. S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U. S. Who we are: Raft (https://TeamRaft.com) is a customer-obsessed non-traditional defense tech company dedicated to empowering U. S. military and government agencies with cutting-edge AI/ML and data solutions. We are a leader in autonomous data fusion and Agentic AI, with a purposeful focus on Distributed Data Systems, Platforms at Scale, and Complex Application Development. With headquarters in McLean, VA, our range of clients includes innovative federal and public agencies leveraging design thinking, cutting-edge tech stack, and cloud-native ecosystem. We build digital solutions that impact the lives of millions of Americans. Our flagship AI platform, [R]AIMS (Raft AI Mission System), enables operators and engineers to rapidly build, deploy, evaluate, and govern AI-powered mission workflows across highly dynamic operational environments. We are expanding our AI/ML presence in Rome, NY to support Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and are looking for a hands-on AI/ML Engineer to contribute directly to model development, evaluation, and operational AI delivery. About the role: As an AI/ML Engineer embedded in Rome, NY, you will work directly on model development efforts while leveraging and extending [R]AIMS platform capabilities to accelerate experimentation, evaluation, deployment, and operational transition. This is a highly hands-on role for an engineer who wants to build real-world AI systems with direct mission impact. You will work closely with platform engineers, AI leadership, and mission stakeholders to move models from experimentation through production. The work sits at the intersection of applied machine learning, model training and evaluation, AI platform engineering, and operational AI deployment. You will need to be comfortable operating across that full span: writing training p

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