Principal AI Engineer, AI Security

Job Description

Job Description

About the role
NSPM-11 directs the national security enterprise to adopt AI fast and assure it across the full stack, down to the data pipeline. That is our home field.

We are hiring a Principal AI Engineer, AI Security to build agentic and mission AI on the Bluestaq platform. You will prove it secure and resilient from design through deployment.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with a player-coach path. You will deliver hands-on now and stand up and lead a small AI team as the work grows. You will be the AI technical authority across the full lifecycle, from shaping bids to assuring what we deliver.

What you'll do

• Serve as the AI Security technical authority on captures and bids. Translate mission-owner AI and AI-security requirements into solutions that win. Build credibility with technical buyers across the IC, DoD, and partners.
• Own AI-assurance/security roadmap for the platform, spanning model security, runtime protection, and threat modeling for AI built on Bluestaq data. Partner with engineering to embed assurance by design.
• Design and assure AI for the environments mission owners operate in, including disconnected, classified, and air-gapped settings where assurance cannot depend on continuous cloud connectivity.
• Threat-model AI systems against the attacks that matter at this level: adversarial inputs, model extraction and distillation, data and supply-chain poisoning, and agentic or tool-use abuse.
• Establish and carry the external voice on secure AI for national security through talks, writing, and demonstrated technical work.
• Ensure delivered AI meets the assurance, TEVV, and supply-chain standards mission owners depend on, so trust drives expansion and renewal.
• Connect AI-security work into Bluestaq's broader AI platform, so evaluation frameworks, model registries, and pipelines serve the whole program instead of a security-only silo.
• Stay ahead of AI/ML advances and bring in the ones that offer real advantage here, not the ones that just make headlines.
• Coach mission owners and non-technical stakeholders on what AI can realistically do, so expectations match reality before a program commits.
• Spot gaps in Bluestaq's AI tooling, skills, or process before they become blockers, and drive the proposals that close them.
• Hire and lead a small AI team as the pipeline grows.

Required qualifications

• Five or more years across AI security architecture, AI/ML engineering, or a closely related combination, with demonstrated specialization at the intersection of the two.
• Hands-on experience securing modern AI systems: LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, and agentic or tool-using architectures, including MCP-style integrations.
• Working command of the AI threat landscape and practical countermeasures, including where those countermeasures are weak and you compensate with architecture.
• Cloud security depth, AWS preferred, including identity and workload isolation for model and inference traffic, preferably supporting large-scale Intelligence Community programs.
• Ability to translate AI risk so a customer accreditor, a security auditor, and an engineer each understand it in their own terms.
• The seniority to own a domain, set standards, and influence engineering decisions without direct authority.
• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.

Preferred qualifications

• Active TS/SCI.
• A public technical record in AI security: research, conference talks, open tooling, red-team writeups, or sustained content. We value the thinking shown, not just the resume.
• Experience delivering and assuring AI in regulated or government environments.
• Familiarity with the federal AI assurance landscape, including NIST AI RMF, TEVV, and the NSPM-11 mandate.
• Secure AI/ML supply-chain experience: model and dataset provenance, third-party model risk, and the equivalent of an SBOM for models.
• Experience standing up an AI or AI-security capability from zero and growing a team into it.

Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field, or equivalent experience. Advanced degree preferred.

Required Location & Travel
This position remote, open to candidates based in Colorado or Virginia, with up to 12 trips per year to customer, partner, or government sites, including secure facilities.

Salary Range (CO)

$200,000—$300,000 USD

Clearance Requirement: This position may require the ability to obtain a TS/SCI Clearance. To be eligible for a security clearance, U.S. citizenship is required, and an employee must agree to participate in a background screen and credit check. Eligibility for a TS/SCI Clearance will be assessed as part of the onboarding process or based on programmatic needs.

About Bluestaq
At Bluestaq, we build secure data platforms that matter for space missions, national defense, healthcare systems, and commercial innovation. Founded in 2018, we've become a leader in enterprise software and secure data management by staying focused on what counts: modern architecture, operational excellence, and mission impact.

We're engineers, problem-solvers, and builders who take the mission seriously, but not ourselves. We automate the repeatable, question the status quo, and design systems that are as reliable as they are scalable. Whether we're supporting space, defense systems, or healthcare advancements, we build with the same principles: cloud-native solutions, security by design, and relentless simplicity.

Relocation: This position does not offer relocation. Candidates must live in the immediate area or relocate at their own expense.

Date the Position Closes: Applications will be accepted for 60 days beyond the posting date, or until the position is filled, whichever comes first.

Bluestaq is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We prohibit unlawful discrimination against applicants or employees on the basis age 40 and over, color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, military or veteran status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other status protected by state or local law.

Bluestaq will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities and employees whose work requirements interfere with a religious belief unless doing so would result in an undue hardship to Bluestaq or a direct threat. Employees needing such accommodation are instructed to contact Human Resources immediately at View email address on ziprecruiter.com.