Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineer

Koniag Government Services is seeking an experienced Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineer with an active Secret security clearance to support KMS and our government customer in Huntsville, AL.

We offer competitive compensation and an extraordinary benefits package including health, dental and vision insurance, 401K with company matching, flexible spending accounts, paid holidays, three weeks paid time off, and more.

This role will involve providing expert guidance on AI initiatives, leading research efforts, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to implement AI solutions in cloud environments (especially Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure). The ideal candidate ensures not only strong model performance, but also that systems are resilient, secure, scalable, and compliant with best practices and relevant regulations. They will oversee the full lifecycle from model development to production deployment and maintenance, with a heavy emphasis on operational and security posture.

Essential Functions, Responsibilities & Duties may include, but are not limited to:

• Design, train, fine-tune, and deploy AI/ML models (LLMs, embeddings, classification models, RAG pipelines).
• Build secure, scalable APIs and services to integrate AI capabilities into business systems.
• Design and implement agentic AI workflows that coordinate multiple models or services to achieve mission objectives
• Integrate retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and agentic reasoning into production environments
• Implement and maintain automated CI/CD pipelines for model development, testing, deployment, and rollback.
• Design and implement containerized applications and services that can be deployed across multiple cloud environments.
• Build portable AI pipelines with containerization to ensure future-proof deployments and migration flexibility.
• Integrate security and compliance controls into all phases of development (DevSecOps), code scans, dependency management, vulnerability assessment, etc.
• Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools to provision, configure, and maintain cloud resources.
• Deploy AI/ML systems to production in cloud environments (Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure), ensuring scalability, performance, and cost optimization.
• Design data pipelines for ingestion, preprocessing, training, inference, monitoring.
• Monitor production systems: model drift, performance degradation, operational/logging/metrics, incident response.
• Understanding of autonomous workflow design, reasoning strategies, and error handling
• Ensure compliance with data security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• Collaborate across teams (product, operations, security, data) to translate business requirements and risk posture into technical implementation.

Required Qualifications:

• Strong proficiency in Python and AI/ML frameworks (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow, cloud-native AI libraries).
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Google Cloud, Azure) for AI/ML deployment.
• Experience with containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes) for model deployment.
• Experience building and managing CI/CD pipelines including automated testing and secure software delivery.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps practices: vulnerability scanning, dependency management, secure coding, secrets management, encryption.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation, Azure Resource Manager).
• Proficiency with APIs / microservices (FastAPI, REST, GraphQL).
• Knowledge of vector databases or retrieval systems for embeddings, etc.

Desired Qualifications:

• Prior experience in regulated or high-sensitivity environments (e.g., government, defense, healthcare).
• Knowledge of RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines or multi-agent architecture.
• Integrate RPA solutions with cloud AI services, data sources, and mission applications
• Experience with agent frameworks and interoperability standards, including MCP, A2A, and LangServe.
• Proficiency in designing cloud-native applications with portability across environments (Azure, Google Cloud, on-premises).
• Familiarity with observability/monitoring tools and practices (logging, metrics, alerting).
• Experience with cloud-native security services in Azure/Google (IAM, policies, encryption, network segmentation).
• Experience in model governance, data privacy, bias mitigation, fairness.
• Strong software engineering practices: code reviews, automated testing, version control workflows.

Requirements:

• Active or Interim SECRET security clearance
• Active CompTIA Security+ certification.
• B.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related discipline.
• Equivalent experience may be accepted in lieu of formal education.
• Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate, Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer, OR similar AI certification.
• Compliant with DoW Cyber Workforce Framework (DCWF) requirements - defines foundational, residential, and continuous professional development for roles within the DoW.

Desired Education/Experience:

• Masters in AI, Machine Learning, or a closely related discipline is highly preferred.
• 3-5 years' experience with AI implementations
• Experienced with Cloud and System Engineering
• Experience in Technical Writing for Policy and Planning Documentation
• Experience with project roadmaps and planning and tracking multiple, disparate teams
• Experience authoring and presenting Executive Level documentation and briefs.

Professional Skills:

• Must have excellent written and oral communications skills.
• Must be comfortable working in a fast-paced, matrixed team environment, with a client-centric culture, and an environment of high performers.
• Must be able to multi-task and shift priorities as needed.
• Must have a deep understanding of cloud migrations, software development lifecycle and cybersecurity requirements for the federal government.
• Must be able to work effectively with numerous stakeholder types and bring a group to consensus.

Other Responsibilities:

• Perform other duties as assigned

Our Equal Employment Opportunity Policy
The company is an equal opportunity employer. The company shall not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, color, religion, creed, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity (except where gender is a bona fide occupational qualification), national origin or ancestry, age, disability, citizenship, military/veteran status, marital status, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We are committed to equal employment opportunity in all decisions related to employment, promotion, wages, benefits, and all other privileges, terms, and conditions of employment.
The company is dedicated to seeking all qualified applicants. If you require an accommodation to navigate or apply for a position on our website, please get in touch with Heaven Wood via e-mail at accommodations@koniag-gs.com or by calling 703-488-9377 to request accommodations.

Koniag Government Services (KGS) is an Alaska Native Owned corporation supporting the values and traditions of our native communities through an agile employee and corporate culture that delivers Enterprise Solutions, Professional Services and Operational Management to Federal Government Agencies. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Koniag, we apply our proven commercial solutions to a deep knowledge of Defense and Civilian missions to provide forward leaning technical, professional, and operational solutions. KGS enables successful mission outcomes for our customers through solution-oriented business partnerships and a commitment to exceptional service delivery. We ensure long-term success with a continuous improvement approach while balancing the collective interests of our customers, employees, and native communities. For more information, please visit www.koniag-gs.com .

Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled. Shareholder Preference in accordance with Public Law 88-352