AI Developer/Engineer

Upslope Advisors is seeking an AI Developer/Engineer to design, build, evaluate, deploy, and sustain production artificial intelligence and machine-learning solutions for a federal civilian agency. The successful candidate will support retrieval-augmented generation applications, advanced chatbots, predictive models, document-processing solutions, fraud-detection capabilities, workflow automation, and other AI-enabled mission applications. This position requires hands-on AI and machine-learning engineering, cloud integration, software development, model evaluation, and production deployment experience. Key Responsibilities AI and Machine-Learning Solution Development

• Design, develop, train, evaluate, and optimize artificial intelligence and machine-learning models.
• Build production retrieval-augmented generation applications, advanced chatbots, document-processing services, predictive models, and automation tools.
• Select appropriate models, algorithms, embeddings, vector stores, and retrieval strategies.
• Develop model-performance metrics and document experiments, assumptions, limitations, and results.
• Support the development of fraud-detection, forecasting, public-sector analytics, and other mission-focused AI capabilities.

Model Evaluation and Responsible AI

• Evaluate model accuracy, groundedness, hallucination risk, bias, drift, reliability, security, and overall performance.
• Implement model guardrails, human-in-the-loop controls, logging, and operational monitoring.
• Conduct prompt testing, retrieval-quality testing, hallucination testing, and performance validation.
• Identify model limitations and recommend appropriate technical or operational controls.
• Support continuous evaluation and improvement of deployed AI solutions.

Data Engineering and Application Integration

• Develop Python-based artificial intelligence, data-processing, and API services.
• Perform data preprocessing, feature engineering, statistical analysis, and data-quality validation.
• Work with large and complex datasets from multiple structured and unstructured sources.
• Integrate AI and machine-learning models into full-stack applications and enterprise technology platforms.
• Support front-end, middleware, database, API, and back-end integration.
• Refactor and onboard externally developed AI applications into controlled enterprise environments.

Cloud, Automation, and Production Operations

• Develop infrastructure as code using Terraform or comparable tools.
• Build and maintain Git-based continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
• Implement automated testing, deployment controls, and release-management processes.
• Integrate observability, alerting, performance monitoring, and model-monitoring capabilities.
• Support the deployment and operation of AI applications in secure cloud and enterprise environments.
• Troubleshoot application, model, data, integration, and production-performance issues.

Documentation and Collaboration

• Prepare architecture, build, operating, security, model, and user documentation.
• Document models, experiments, processes, technical decisions, assumptions, and limitations.
• Collaborate with product owners, data scientists, software engineers, cloud engineers, security teams, and customer stakeholders.
• Support demonstrations, technical reviews, knowledge transfer, and user adoption activities.
• Support accessibility, security authorization, data-governance, and continuous-monitoring activities.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, or a related field.
• Five to ten years of relevant software-development, data-science, or AI and machine-learning engineering experience.
• Strong proficiency in Python.
• Demonstrated experience designing and deploying machine-learning solutions.
• Experience integrating AI and machine-learning models into production applications.
• Strong understanding of model evaluation, optimization, testing, and performance measurement.
• Experience working with large and complex datasets.
• Experience with data preprocessing, feature engineering, statistical analysis, and data-quality validation.
• Experience with Git, continuous integration and continuous delivery, automated testing, and infrastructure as code.
• Experience integrating monitoring or observability tools into AI systems.
• Familiarity with deep-learning frameworks and modern AI and machine-learning tools.
• Ability to document models, experiments, processes, and technical decisions.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, communication, and collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Production experience with Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure Machine Learning, AWS SageMaker, GCP Vertex AI, or comparable platforms.
• Experience developing retrieval-augmented generation applications, vector-search solutions, and advanced chatbots.
• Experience with embeddings, vector databases, retrieval strategies, and document-ingestion pipelines.
• Experience with prompt engineering, large language model evaluation, guardrails, drift monitoring, and hallucination testing.
• Experience with ServiceNow AI, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, or comparable enterprise AI tools.
• Experience supporting federal cloud environments and FedRAMP requirements.
• Knowledge of National Institute of Standards and Technology controls and federal security-authorization processes.
• Experience working with Controlled Unclassified Information or personally identifiable information.
• Experience developing accessible applications that meet Section 508 requirements.
• Experience supporting disaster-response, grants, fraud-detection, forecasting, or public-sector analytics programs.
• Existing favorable federal background investigation.

Citizenship and Suitability Requirements

• U.S. citizenship is required.
• The selected candidate must be able to obtain and maintain a federal public trust determination.

About Us Upslope Advisors is an 8(a) certified business consulting and professional services firm dedicated to delivering high-impact solutions to our federal clients. We specialize in program management, IT services, research security, and mission support that enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and drive mission success. Our team partners closely with government agencies to design and implement strategies that accelerate response times, safeguard critical assets, and strengthen organizational resilience.