AI ENGINEER - SME - 18+ yrs of Experience - TS/SCI w/Poly clearance is required - PP - 1043 at Halogen Engineering Group – Columbia | Jobyssey

AI Engineer - SME - 18+ yrs of Experience - TS/SCI w/Poly clearance is required

Halogen Engineering Group is looking for a talented AI Engineer to join our team! In this role you will get to provide technical advisory support for the design, evaluation, and advancement of AI-enabled applications, tools, and workflows. This role is intended for a hands-on technical professional who understands how modern AI systems are built and can help guide teams developing practical solutions using large language models, agentic workflows, orchestration frameworks, and supporting software infrastructure.

The right candidate is a builder at heart—someone who explores new frameworks, prototypes ideas, and continuously teaches themselves emerging techniques. Curiosity and passion matter greatly in this role. We want someone who follows the fast-moving AI ecosystem because they genuinely enjoy it, not just because the job requires it.

Location: Columbia, MD

Travel Required: No

Shift: Day

Remote Type: Onsite

Security Clearance: Current TS/SCI

Polygraph: Required (Poly must be less than 7 years old)

Salary Range

The projected compensation range for this position is 238K-252K (annualized USD).

Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to location, the individual’s particular combination of education,knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience, as well as contract-specific affordability and organizational requirements.

Capabilities

Provide SETA support to government teams developing or assessing AI-enabled applications and tools.
Advise on technical approaches for AI application design, prototyping, integration, and evaluation.
Assess solutions involving LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, tool use, agentic workflows, orchestration layers, prompt pipelines, and evaluation harnesses.
Support the review of architectures, development approaches, model usage patterns, and technical risk areas.
Advise on AI engineering considerations such as latency, reliability, observability, testability, guardrails, data flow, and system integration.
Evaluate and compare modern AI frameworks, agentic libraries, and experimentation harnesses for suitability in mission use cases.
Assist with the development of technical guidance, prototypes, engineering recommendations, and briefings for government stakeholders.
Support test and evaluation activities for AI tools, including performance assessment, qualitative review, and workflow validation.
Collaborate with platform engineers, product leads, mission users, and government leadership to ensure AI efforts remain technically grounded and operationally relevant.
Stay current on rapid changes in the AI ecosystem and provide informed recommendations on emerging tools and practices.

Requirements

Required Skills

Experience designing, building, integrating, or evaluating AI/ML-enabled applications or software tools.
Familiarity with modern AI application patterns, including LLM-based applications, RAG, prompt engineering, agentic systems, and AI-assisted workflows.
Working knowledge of one or more agentic or orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, CrewAI, Haystack, LlamaIndex, or similar ecosystems.
Experience with software development fundamentals, APIs, data handling, and system integration.
Ability to assess technical tradeoffs and communicate them clearly to both engineers and government stakeholders.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Desired Skills

Experience with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, or similar languages commonly used in AI application development.
Familiarity with vector databases, embeddings, model APIs, evaluation frameworks, and agent testing harnesses.
Exposure to model hosting, inference pipelines, or cloud-based AI development environments.
Understanding of secure AI development practices, data protection, and operational constraints in government settings.
Experience supporting defense, cyber, intelligence, or mission application development.
Familiarity with human-in-the-loop workflows, AI assurance, and evaluation methodologies.

Qualifications

Minimum of 18 years with Bachelors, 15 years with Masters degree in a relevant field such as Business, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Operations, or related discipline.

Benefits

CareFirst Insurance

Medical Plans

Three available medical plans–2 Platinum PPO Plans ($0 Deductible) and 1 HSA Plan ($1500 deductible)
Halogen pays 100% Medical Premium Costs up to $25,000
CareFirst Wellness Rewards Program

Guardian Insurance

Dental Plan

Halogen pays 50% of the plan costs

Vision Plan

Halogen pays 100% of the plan costs

401K Retirement Plan

· 10% contribution paid by the company, automatically vested and paid in each pay period.

Life Insurance, AD&D, Short and Long Term Disability Coverage

Paid Time Off

· 20 Paid Time Off Days

· 6 Federal Holidays

· 5 Floating Holidays

Bonuses

· Based on performance and billable hours

Halogen Engineering Group does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.

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