Senior AI/ML Developer with TS/SCI + Polygraph

Aperio Global is looking for a Senior AI/ML Developer to join an R&D team in McLean, VA focused on prototyping and evaluating emerging AI technologies. This is a hands-on engineering role in a fast-paced, experimentation-driven environment where you'll design, build, and iterate on cutting-edge solutions using Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), large language models (LLMs), and modern data infrastructure.

You won't be maintaining legacy systems or sitting in status meetings. You'll be figuring out what works, documenting what doesn't, and helping shape how the team approaches complex technical challenges with AI.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and prototype solutions leveraging RAG architectures, LLMs, and emerging AI/ML technologies
• Build and iterate on proof-of-concept applications to evaluate and demonstrate new AI capabilities
• Design, develop, and integrate RESTful APIs to enable data retrieval and exchange across systems
• Own data modeling, querying, and performance optimization in PostgreSQL for AI/ML contexts
• Collaborate with researchers and engineers to evaluate approaches, document results, and recommend technical next steps
• Share insights and findings to support team-wide knowledge growth in AI/ML advancements

Minimum Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph (required at time of application)
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field; equivalent professional experience may substitute
• 8+ years of relevant technical experience in software engineering and AI/ML development
• Expert-level Python programming skills applied to machine learning and NLP systems
• Hands-on experience designing and implementing RAG pipelines and LLM-based solutions
• Demonstrated experience with large language models (LLMs), including prompt engineering, model evaluation, and transformer architectures
• Experience designing and integrating RESTful APIs for data exchange and system integration
• Deep expertise with PostgreSQL including schema design, complex querying, and performance tuning
• Cloud infrastructure experience on AWS, GCP, or Azure including deploying and testing AI prototypes.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with vector databases such as pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate, or Chroma to support semantic search and AI/ML workflows
• Familiarity with LLM orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or Haystack
• Background or interest in geospatial data, systems, or analytic tools (e.g., PostGIS, GDAL)
• Experience developing or maintaining data pipelines, ETL workflows, or orchestration tools such as Airflow or Prefect
• Familiarity with MLOps practices including model deployment, versioning, and monitoring
• Background or interest in working with geospatial data, systems, or analytic tools.
  Experience developing or maintaining data pipelines and utilizing vector databases to support AI/ML workflows.

Salary range is dependent on experience level:  200k-240k