Senior Software Engineer 3 - (AI, AWS, Kubernetes)

Senior Software Engineer 3 - (AI, AWS, Kubernetes)

Clearance: TS/SCI w/ poly

Position ID: 20-24-015-SWE3

Location: Annapolis Junction, Maryland

Join us in building the next generation of AI infrastructure that will power innovation across the customer organization. We're seeking a senior full-stack software engineer to support our AI infrastructure team. In this role, you'll lead the development and operation of critical AI platform components, with a focus on scalable inference services and the broader AI application ecosystem.

This role includes project leadership responsibilities and people care for a small, integrated team within a larger AI platform organization.

• Design, implement, and optimize infrastructure for AI model inference at scale.
• Lead the development and maintenance of production AI services and applications, including retrieval augmented generation (RAG), autonomous agents, and emerging technologies.
• Serve as technical lead for AI infrastructure initiatives, coordinating work across integrated teams.
• Conduct regular one-on-ones and provide coaching, feedback, and support for assigned team members.
• Act as the team point of contact (POC) for contract administration functions.
• Navigate ambiguity and define solutions for complex, underspecified systems and requirements.
• Establish new technical policies, standards, and governance frameworks where gaps exist.
• Drive adoption of new technologies and practices across engineering teams.
• Implement and oversee monitoring, logging, and observability solutions for AI services.
• Ensure high availability, reliability, performance, and security of AI platform components.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders at multiple organizational levels.

Position Required Skills:

• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating large-scale production systems.
• Deep expertise in systems integration across diverse technologies and platforms.
• Hands-on experience with cloud engineering in AWS.
• Advanced proficiency with Kubernetes administration and deployment patterns.
• Strong Python programming skills.
• Experience implementing and scaling observability solutions (APM, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, Prometheus).
• Proven ability to lead technical initiatives and influence organizational change.
• Experience developing technical policies and governance frameworks.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.
• Ability to balance hands-on engineering with leadership and coordination responsibilities.

Position Desired Skills:

• Experience with AI inference serving technologies (vLLM, LiteLLM, etc.).
• Previous experience with agentic frameworks (LangChain).
• Knowledge of vector databases and embedding systems.
• Experience with high-performance computing or distributed systems.
• Track record of successfully driving technical and cultural change.

SWE3 Qualifications:

12 yrs., B.S. in a technical discipline or 4 additional yrs. in place of B.S.

Salary Range: $232k-$283k (Annually)

The range displayed above is a likely salary range for this position. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possible contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.

Akina is a Woman Owned, Service Disabled, Veteran Owned, Small Business, looking for talented and ambitious individuals to join our team. We offer a generous compensation package that includes 24 days PTO accrued annually and 11 federal holidays. Our 401k is 100% vested on your start date and the company makes a direct contribution worth 10% of your salary. Akina covers 100% of healthcare costs for employees and 50% toward dependents. We offer educational assistance towards college classes and will cover costs associated with job related training and certifications.

Akina is committed to excellence and creating innovative and flexible solutions for our clients. We are a small company with an open ear to our employees' needs in order to attract and retain quality talent that enables our customer's mission.

We are an equal employment opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.