Data & AI Engineer (Agentic Systems)
Defenseunicorns · Springfield, VA
About this role
**Defense Unicorns — Data & AI Engineer (Agentic Systems)** **Role Description** Defense Unicorns is seeking an **Applied AI Engineer** to embed with a government team and its technology partners, building an emerging **AI-powered engineering ecosystem**. You’ll design, build, and integrate **agentic AI capabilities** that let AI models interact with tools, access enterprise data, execute multi-step workflows, and support mission applications. This is a **hands-on engineering** role focused on building **reliable, repeatable agentic capabilities** that move beyond experimentation into working software in **secure and classified environments**. --- **Responsibilities** - Design, build, and maintain agentic AI applications integrating **LLMs, tools, APIs, and enterprise data** for mission workflows - Develop agents that execute **multi-step tasks**, interact with external services, and coordinate actions across existing systems - Implement **agent orchestration**, tool calling, workflow state management, error handling, and appropriate human oversight - Build and integrate **RAG pipelines** (semantic search, embeddings, vector-based retrieval) - Develop backend services and **APIs using Python** and modern engineering practices - Integrate agentic AI capabilities into existing applications, software delivery workflows, and enterprise platforms - Establish **testing, evaluation, monitoring, and reliability** practices for AI agents and LLM-powered applications - Collaborate with data engineers to ensure agents access **reliable, relevant, and governed** enterprise data - Deploy and operate AI applications in **Kubernetes/OpenShift**, integrating into **CI/CD** workflows - Troubleshoot end-to-end issues across agent behavior, tool execution, APIs, data access, application services, and infrastructure - Work with government engineers and commercial technology partners to resolve integration challenges and remove blockers - Create documentation, reusable components, and operational standards to make successful patterns repeatable - Operate effectively in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment where security requirements and mission priorities evolve **Onsite Location / Schedule** - Local to the **National Capital Region** - Able to support onsite work at a government facility in **Springfield, VA** as mission needs increase (approximately **2–3 days/week**) --- **Clearance & Travel** - **Active Top Secret clearance with SCI eligibility required** - Ability to support approximately **2–3 days/week onsite** in Springfield, VA (with additional onsite presence as needed) --- **Minimum Experience & Qualifications** - ~**3–5 years** of software engineering experience (or equivalent demonstrated capability) - **Hands-on experience building agentic AI applications** (AI agents, LLM tool calling, multi-step workflows, or agent orchestration) - Strong proficiency with **Python** and backend development - Experience integrating LLMs via **APIs/SDKs** - Experience building/integrating **REST APIs** and connecting applications to external services/data sources - Understanding of agent workflows, tool execution, state management, and error handling - Experience with **Git**, testing, debugging, and modern software development practices - Experience in **cloud-native/containerized** environments and collaboration with platform engineering teams - Ability to troubleshoot across APIs, data services, infrastructure, and AI components - Ability to work i
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