Job Title: AI/ML Engineer I
Pay Type: SALARIED EXEMPT
Location: Remote (Must Work East Coast Hours)
Citizenship: U.S. Citizenship (Required)
Summary of Position Role/Responsibilities
Quzara is seeking an AI/ML Engineer I to support the development, deployment, and operational support of AI-enabled applications serving federal and defense-adjacent customers. This role combines applied AI engineering with practical data science responsibilities to ensure reliable, secure, and high-performing AI systems in production environments. AI/ML Engineer will collaborate with internal development teams and government customers to troubleshoot issues, resolve defects, optimize model behavior, and improve data quality across AI-driven workflows. This is a hands-on engineering role focused on implementation, support, and continuous improvement not research or supervisory leadership.
Essential Functions of the Job
- Develop, integrate, and maintain AI/ML components within secure, production-grade applications
- Work directly with customers and internal engineering teams to troubleshoot system behavior and resolve defects
- Perform bug fixes, root cause analysis, and performance optimization across AI-enabled services
- Diagnosing and remediate data quality issues affecting model performance and system outputs
- Support data preprocessing, transformation, validation, and feature engineering pipelines
- Implement and optimize Large Language Model (LLM) integrations in secure cloud environments
- Assist in prompt engineering, response evaluation, and model tuning
- Support retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and embedding workflows
- Participate in LLMOps practices including monitoring, logging, versioning, and performance tracking of deployed models
- Evaluate model outputs for consistency, hallucination risk, bias, and reliability
- Integrate AI services via REST APIs within backend systems
- Contribute to observability, telemetry, and audit logging aligned with compliance requirements
- Document technical implementations in accordance with secure development standards
Marginal Functions of the Job
- Other duties as assigned
Normal Work Schedule
This full-time role runs Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM–5:30 PM and requires flexibility to work remotely or on-site (if applicable per client RTO policies). On occasion additional hours may be necessary.
Education, Training, and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related technical field
- 1–3 years of professional experience in AI/ML engineering, data science, or software development
- Strong proficiency in Python
- Experience troubleshooting structured and unstructured data issues
- Familiarity with data preprocessing, feature engineering, and model validation techniques
- Hands-on experience working with OpenAI or similar LLM APIs
- Familiarity with foundational models and smaller language models (SLMs)
- Experience with transformer-based architecture (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers)
- Understanding of embeddings, tokenization, fine-tuning concepts, and inference workflows
- Experience in integrating AI services into cloud environments (Azure preferred)
- Understanding of LLMOps concepts including model monitoring, logging, prompt iteration, and deployment workflows
- Ability to debug model outputs and trace issues across data, prompts, and system integrations
- Eligible for U.S. Public Trust clearance.
Strongly Preferred Experience
- Experience implementing RAG architecture and vector-based search systems
- Familiarity with vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Pinecone, Azure AI Search)
- Exposure to containerization (Docker) and CI/CD practices
- Experience supporting AI systems in regulated or government environments
- Understanding of model evaluation metrics and performance benchmarking
EEO Statement
The Company is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, marital status, disability, veteran's status, or any other basis protected by applicable discrimination laws.
Skills Required
- U.S. citizenship
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related technical field
- 1-3 years of professional experience in AI/ML engineering, data science, or software development
- Strong proficiency in Python
- Experience troubleshooting structured and unstructured data issues
- Familiarity with data preprocessing, feature engineering, and model validation techniques
- Hands-on experience with OpenAI or similar LLM APIs
- Familiarity with foundational models and smaller language models
- Experience with transformer-based architectures, such as Hugging Face Transformers
- Understanding of embeddings, tokenization, fine-tuning concepts, and inference workflows
- Experience integrating AI services into cloud environments; Azure preferred
- Understanding of LLMOps, including monitoring, logging, prompt iteration, and deployment workflows
- Ability to debug model outputs and trace issues across data, prompts, and system integrations
- Eligible for a U.S. Public Trust clearance
- Experience implementing RAG architecture and vector-based search systems
- Familiarity with vector databases such as FAISS, Pinecone, or Azure AI Search
- Exposure to Docker containerization and CI/CD practices
- Experience supporting AI systems in regulated or government environments
- Understanding of model evaluation metrics and performance benchmarking
What We Do
Quzara is a Washington, D.C.-area cybersecurity and compliance advisory firm serving federal, commercial, and defense industrial base customers. It helps organizations meet FedRAMP, CMMC, and other federal security requirements through advisory and compliance services, cloud security architecture, and security analytics. Its Cybertorch platform provides 24/7 managed extended detection and response, including threat monitoring, incident response, and vulnerability management for regulated environments.
