Principal AI Engineer, AI Security

Role Description

NSPM-11 directs the national security enterprise to adopt AI fast and assure it across the full stack, down to the data pipeline. 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 environments mission owners operate in, including disconnected, classified, and air-gapped settings.
• Threat-model AI systems against significant attacks: 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.
• Connect AI-security work into Bluestaq's broader AI platform.
• Stay ahead of AI/ML advances and bring in the ones that offer real advantage.
• Coach mission owners and non-technical stakeholders on realistic AI capabilities.
• Spot gaps in Bluestaq's AI tooling, skills, or process and drive proposals that close them.
• Hire and lead a small AI team as the pipeline grows.

Qualifications

• Five or more years across AI security architecture, AI/ML engineering, or a closely related combination.
• Hands-on experience securing modern AI systems: LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, and agentic or tool-using architectures.
• Working command of the AI threat landscape and practical countermeasures.
• Cloud security depth, AWS preferred.
• Ability to translate AI risk for different stakeholders.
• The seniority to own a domain, set standards, and influence engineering decisions.
• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.

Requirements

• Active TS/SCI.
• A public technical record in AI security: research, conference talks, open tooling, red-team writeups, or sustained content.
• 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 is 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.

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.

Company Description

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.