Location

Hybrid (Maryland preferred)
Remote considered for highly qualified candidates

Employment Type

Full-Time

Clearance Requirement

Must be a U.S. Citizen and eligible to obtain a DoD Secret clearance

Company Overview

CyOne is a mission-focused software company delivering advanced capabilities to the U.S. Department of War and allied partners. Our flagship platform, WISRD (Wide-area ISR Discovery), enables multi-domain situational awareness, intelligence support to targeting, and ISR orchestration across cloud, on-premise, and tactical edge environments.

WISRD is actively deployed in operational environments and aligned with emerging Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiatives. Our platform integrates and fuses data from ISR sensors, mission systems, and partner sources to support real-time decision-making in complex operational environments.

Position Overview

CyOne is seeking an AI / ML Engineer to lead the development of an AI-enabled assistant embedded within the WISRD platform. This capability will enable analysts and operators to query mission data, navigate workflows, generate insights, and trigger actions using natural language.

This is a high-impact, hands-on engineering role focused on building production AI systems that operate across enterprise and tactical edge environments, including disconnected, degraded, intermittent, and low-bandwidth (DDIL) conditions.

The selected candidate will serve as the technical lead for AI capabilities within WISRD, owning architecture, implementation, and delivery from concept through operational deployment.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and build AI capabilities that enable users to query ISR data, generate insights, and trigger mission workflows through natural language
• Develop and maintain Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines grounded in structured and unstructured operational data
• Implement and optimize vector search, embedding pipelines, and hybrid retrieval strategies to ensure accurate, reliable outputs
• Build and maintain a provider-agnostic LLM integration layer supporting both enterprise AI services and self-hosted models
• Design AI systems that operate effectively in DDIL (disconnected, degraded, intermittent, low-bandwidth) environments
• Lead model selection, fine-tuning (LoRA/QLoRA), and evaluation using domain-specific datasets
• Develop AI backend services and APIs, including orchestration, context management, and intent parsing
• Integrate AI capabilities into the WISRD platform for real-time user interaction and workflow automation
• Establish MLOps pipelines, monitor model performance (accuracy, latency, cost), and continuously improve system quality
• Ensure AI solutions meet security, data handling, and multi-enclave operational requirements

Work Environment

• Small, collaborative engineering team
• Direct interaction with developers, DevOps engineers, and mission subject matter experts
• Agile development environment with rapid iteration cycles
• Opportunity to support real-world operational deployments

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive salary based on experience
• Comprehensive benefits package (medical, dental, vision)
• Paid time off and holidays
• Opportunities for professional growth and advancement

Required Qualifications

Technical Skills

• Experience designing and implementing RAG pipelines in production
• Experience with vector databases (e.g., pgvector, Qdrant, Pinecone, Weaviate)
• Strong understanding of embeddings and semantic search
• Experience fine-tuning LLMs (LoRA / QLoRA) using Hugging Face or similar
• Proficiency in Python and modern backend frameworks (e.g., FastAPI)
• Experience with PostgreSQL or similar relational databases
• Experience with REST APIs and streaming technologies

Infrastructure & Tools

• Experience with Docker and containerized deployments
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and distributed systems
• Experience with model serving frameworks (e.g., vLLM, TGI, Ollama)
• Experience with GPU-based compute environments

Experience

• 3+ years of experience in AI/ML engineering or related field
• Experience deploying AI/LLM-based systems to production
• Experience working with structured or operational data
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with hybrid search (vector + keyword retrieval)
• Experience with model quantization techniques (GGUF, GPTQ, AWQ)
• Experience deploying AI systems to edge or resource-constrained environments
• Familiarity with Cloudera ML or similar enterprise platforms
• Experience with ISR systems, geospatial data, or mission command environments
• Background in DoD, intelligence community, or other regulated environments
• Familiarity with Angular or TypeScript
• Active DoD security clearance