Senior AI Developer at Steampunk
McLean, VA
$140,000–$190,000from the description
Jul 6, 2026
McLean, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior engineering role focused on building production-ready AI systems for U.S. federal clients, spanning LLM-powered applications, retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, multi-agent workflows, and predictive ML models. The work covers the full development lifecycle — from data ingestion and model experimentation through API integration, cloud deployment, and monitoring. Suits an experienced engineer with a strong Python background and hands-on familiarity with modern AI frameworks who can also mentor junior teammates.
Senior level · 5+ years · National · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
No specific work location is stated in the posting. Steampunk is headquartered in the Washington, DC area and primarily serves federal clients, but no city or remote policy is explicitly declared — location and remote status are unconfirmed.
The role is classified as Software Developers (15-1252) rather than Data Scientists (15-2051) because the primary emphasis is on building production-grade AI applications, APIs, orchestration logic, and integrated services — engineering delivery rather than modeling or statistical research. Data Scientists is noted as a plausible runner-up given the ML/generative AI depth required.
The degree requirement is marked None: the JD lists 'Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D.' but does not hard-gate on any specific level, and equivalent experience is implicitly accepted given the broad framing.
The JD requires the ability to hold a U.S. government public trust position. This is not a formal security clearance (Confidential/Secret/TS), so the clearance requirement is set to None, but candidates must be eligible for a public trust suitability determination.
Multi-agent orchestration and prompt engineering appear in the Qualifications section but are framed with softer language ('Familiarity with') rather than the firm proficiency language used for Python, frameworks, RAG, and cloud — treated as preferred accordingly.
The 2+ years figure is tied specifically to AI/ML or LLM-focused work; the overall role-level minimum is 5+ years of software engineering experience.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): multi-agent orchestration.
Read the full posting
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