AI/ML Engineering Lead

Position : AI/ML Engineering Lead

Location: Linthicum Heights, Maryland (Local Can

Work Arrangement: On-site

Local Candidates Only: Candidates must currently reside in the local Maryland / DMV area and be able to commute to the worksite. Relocation and remote work are not available.

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced AI/ML Engineering Lead to lead the architecture, development, implementation, and governance of a shared enterprise AI/ML platform supporting multiple state agencies.

The ideal candidate will bring strong expertise in machine learning engineering, MLOps, cloud infrastructure, data engineering, and Generative AI, with a focus on delivering secure, scalable, reliable, and responsible AI/ML solutions in an enterprise environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, development, implementation, and governance of a shared enterprise AI/ML platform.
• Design and maintain scalable ML engineering and MLOps capabilities.
• Establish model development, experiment tracking, model registry, deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management processes.
• Lead the implementation of Generative AI solutions, including LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), prompt engineering, model evaluation, and fine-tuning.
• Design and oversee data pipelines, feature stores, data quality, lineage, and governance practices.
• Implement cloud-native infrastructure, containerization, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, and GitOps practices.
• Establish security, reliability, observability, and responsible AI governance standards.
• Mentor engineering teams and collaborate with stakeholders across multiple agencies.
• Support compliance with applicable cybersecurity, privacy, and AI risk management requirements.

Required Qualifications

• 16+ years of software engineering or data engineering experience, including at least 3 years focused on production ML systems, MLOps, or ML platform engineering.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field. A master's degree is preferred.
• Experience building or operating shared enterprise AI/ML platforms supporting multiple teams or agencies.
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, and Hugging Face.
• Hands-on experience with MLflow, Kubeflow, Apache Airflow, or equivalent MLOps tools.
• Experience with AWS SageMaker or comparable AI/ML services on Azure or GCP.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, model registries, experiment tracking, automated testing, deployment, and monitoring.
• Strong understanding of LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG architecture, model evaluation, and fine-tuning.
• Experience with data pipelines, feature stores, data quality, data lineage, and governance.
• Experience with Terraform or Pulumi and GitOps practices.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, architecture, mentoring, security, and responsible AI experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in state government, public sector, or highly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with FedRAMP, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, and applicable cybersecurity and privacy requirements.
• Experience with responsible AI, model explainability, fairness auditing, bias mitigation, and model risk management.
• Experience with platform observability, reliability engineering, incident management, disaster recovery, and cloud cost optimization.

Work Location

This is an on-site position based in Linthicum Heights, Maryland.

Application Instructions

Interested candidates should submit an updated résumé highlighting relevant AI/ML engineering, MLOps, cloud platform, Generative AI, and technical leadership experience.