Job Description

SALARY RANGE $209,000 - $266,000/year

DUTIES As a successful candidate for the Senior Software Engineer III – AI Infrastructure role, you will lead the development, operation, and evolution of the next generation of AI infrastructure that powers innovation across the customer organization. As a senior full-stack engineer, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining critical AI platform capabilities that support scalable inference services and a growing ecosystem of AI-enabled applications. You will provide technical leadership across AI infrastructure initiatives, guiding the design and operation of reliable, secure, and high-performance platform components while collaborating with engineers, stakeholders, and integrated teams across the organization. In addition to hands-on engineering responsibilities, you will mentor team members, support professional development through coaching and feedback, and help coordinate technical efforts to deliver mission objectives. You will help establish technical standards, governance frameworks, and engineering best practices while driving adoption of emerging technologies that improve the scalability, reliability, and effectiveness of enterprise AI capabilities. Through leadership, systems engineering, cloud technologies, automation, and platform development, you will help shape the foundation that enables the customer’s long-term AI strategy and operational success.

Required Skills

SKILLS

Design, implement, and optimize infrastructure supporting AI model inference at scale

Lead the development, deployment, and maintenance of production AI services and applications, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), autonomous agents, and emerging AI technologies

Serve as the technical lead for AI infrastructure initiatives, coordinating efforts across integrated engineering and platform teams

Provide leadership, mentorship, coaching, and professional development support to assigned team members

Conduct regular one-on-one meetings and provide constructive feedback to support team growth and performance

Act as the team point of contact for contract administration and operational coordination activities

Analyze complex and ambiguous requirements to define scalable, maintainable, and effective technical solutions

Establish and maintain technical standards, policies, governance frameworks, and engineering best practices

Drive the adoption of modern technologies, processes, and engineering methodologies across teams and organizations

Implement and oversee monitoring, logging, and observability capabilities to improve platform visibility and operational awareness

Ensure the availability, reliability, scalability, performance, and security of AI platform components and supporting infrastructure

Collaborate with engineers, stakeholders, and leadership to align technical solutions with organizational objectives

Communicate technical concepts, project status, risks, and recommendations to stakeholders at multiple organizational levels

Support the continuous improvement and modernization of AI infrastructure, cloud environments, and platform operations

Balance hands-on engineering responsibilities with leadership, coordination, and strategic planning activities

Contribute to the long-term growth and success of enterprise AI capabilities through technical leadership and platform innovation

QUALIFICATIONS Twelve (12) years' experience as a SWE in programs and contracts of similar scope, type, and complexity is required. A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline from an accredited college or university is required. Four (4) years of additional SWE experience on projects with similar software processes may be substituted for a bachelor's degree.

Additional Requirements:

Extensive experience designing, building, deploying, and operating large-scale production systems

Deep expertise integrating complex systems across diverse technologies, platforms, and environments

Hands-on experience with cloud engineering and solution deployment within AWS environments

Advanced proficiency in administering Kubernetes environments and implementing modern deployment patterns

Strong Python development skills for infrastructure, automation, and application development efforts

Experience implementing, scaling, and maintaining observability solutions using technologies such as APM, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, and Prometheus

Proven ability to lead technical initiatives and drive adoption of new technologies, processes, and engineering practices

Experience developing and implementing technical policies, standards, and governance frameworks

Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, infrastructure automation, and operational excellence principles

Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills across technical and non-technical audiences

Ability to balance hands-on engineering responsibilities with leadership, coordination, and strategic planning activities

Strong change management and organizational influence skills

Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving abilities

Experience leading cross-functional teams and coordinating efforts across multiple stakeholders and organizations

Ability to operate effectively within ambiguous environments and establish structure for evolving requirements

Experience supporting the full lifecycle of cloud-native applications and platform services from design through production operations

Desired Skills

NICE-TO-HAVES

Experience with AI inference serving technologies such as vLLM, LiteLLM, or similar platforms

Experience developing solutions using agentic AI frameworks such as LangChain or comparable technologies

Knowledge of vector databases, embedding models, and semantic search architectures

Experience designing and supporting retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) solutions and AI-enabled applications

Familiarity with large language model deployment, optimization, and inference workflows

Experience with high-performance computing environments and distributed systems architectures

Knowledge of scalable data processing, distributed computing, and resource optimization techniques

Experience supporting enterprise AI platforms and machine learning infrastructure

Familiarity with emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and platform capabilities

Demonstrated track record of successfully driving technical transformation and organizational change initiatives

Experience influencing engineering culture, best practices, and technology adoption across teams

Experience leading modernization efforts involving cloud, platform, or AI infrastructure technologies

Ability to champion innovation while balancing operational stability and organizational objectives

About Black Eagle Defense

Black Eagle Defense is a Maryland-based small business that provides Information Technology, Cybersecurity, and related Consulting Services to the private and public sectors. Our team is composed of highly trained professionals with a commitment to continued learning, versatility, and adaptability within the ever-evolving technological landscape.

We are proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer.

Job description