Carnegie Mellon University · 1 day ago
AI Engineer - Mission Innovation Lab
Pittsburgh, PA
Full-time
Onsite
Mid, Senior Level
4+ years expCarnegie Mellon University is a leading institution in research and innovation, and they are seeking an AI Engineer for their Mission Innovation Lab. The role involves designing and developing AI models and systems for defense and national security applications, collaborating with researchers and government sponsors to deliver reliable AI capabilities.
EducationHigher EducationUniversities
No H1B
Security Clearance Required
Responsibilities
Design, develop, and fine‑tune a variety of AI models
Design autonomous agents and multi‑step pipelines using LangChain, ReAct, tool‑calling, or custom orchestration; employ the Model Context protocol to manage stateful interactions
Build Retrieval‑Augmented Generation pipelines that combine external knowledge bases with LLMs to improve factual accuracy for warfighting applications
Implement end‑to‑end data pipelines, ETL processes, and back‑end services (Python, C/C++, Java) that feed data to models
Create CI/CD pipelines for model training, validation, containerized deployment (Docker/Kubernetes), and security scanning; maintain model registries, monitoring, and version control of context protocols
Produce rapid prototypes, run benchmarks, and conduct robustness/adversarial testing in realistic environments
Work closely with senior ML engineers, software developers, and government customers; mentor junior staff and contribute to design reviews and documentation
Stay current with emerging LLM architectures, agentic paradigms, PEFT/LoRA methods, and AI‑safety techniques; translate new research into operational capabilities
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a related field with at least four years of relevant experience (or an M.S. with two years)
Ability to obtain and maintain an active Department of War (DoW) security clearance
You must be able and willing to work onsite 5 days per week at an SEI office in either Pittsburgh, PA or Arlington, VA
Proficiency in Python and at least one compiled language (C/C++ or Java); experience with REST/GraphQL APIs and containerization
Strong grasp of ML theory (supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement learning) and evaluation metrics
Hands-on experience fine-tuning LLMs and using frameworks such as Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, or comparable agent tools
Familiarity with building RAG pipelines (vector stores, dense/sparse retrievers)
Experience applying PEFT/LoRA methods (e.g., LoRA, adapters) to large models
Understanding of Model Context protocols for managing model state across multi-turn interactions
Experience building evaluation frameworks, benchmarks, or data quality pipelines
Experience with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or JAX; knowledge of data-pipeline tools (Airflow, Prefect, Ray) is a plus
Awareness of DevSecOps practices (CI/CD, GitOps, container security scanning, model-registry concepts) is desirable
Preferred
Deploying LLM APIs (FastAPI, gRPC) at scale, handling latency and load balancing
Building multi-tool agents, planner-executor loops, or tool-calling pipelines for complex decision-making
Conducting adversarial testing, implementing input sanitization, and contributing to AI-safety research
Utilizing GPU/TPU resources, mixed-precision training, and distributed training frameworks such as DeepSpeed or ZeRO
Prior work on defense, intelligence, or government-focused AI projects and familiarity with DoW acquisition or compliance processes
Contributing to open-source AI and ML libraries, agentic frameworks, or context-protocol implementations
Benefits
Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental, and vision insurance
Generous retirement savings program with employer contributions
Tuition benefits
Ample paid time off
Observed holidays
Life and accidental death and disability insurance
Free Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus pass
Access to our Family Concierge Team to help navigate childcare needs
Fitness center access
Company
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university that offers degrees in technology, arts, and various other fields.
5001-10000 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$488.58MKey Investors
ICANNAppalachian Regional CommissioneBPF Foundation
2025-05-29Grant· $0.45M
2024-09-05Grant· $0.5M
2024-08-29Grant· $0.05M
Leadership Team
Angela Blanton
Vice President for Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Amy Coutu
Assistant Vice President, Enterprise Applications
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