Senior AI Developer at Steampunk
McLean, VA
$140,000–$180,000from the description
Jul 7, 2026
McLean, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior engineering role focused on building and deploying production-grade AI systems — including LLM-powered applications, multi-agent workflows, and RAG pipelines — for a federal technology contractor. The work spans designing reusable AI components, integrating models with enterprise systems and cloud platforms, and embedding responsible AI practices. Suits an experienced software engineer with hands-on Python and modern AI framework skills who can operate across both technical and cross-functional teams.
Senior level · 5+ years · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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
Roughly 290 people in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 220–380
Applicant volume Light — Few people clear these requirements, so an application that does clear them gets looked at. Worth applying to even if you miss a nice-to-have.
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 $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105). 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 (8)
The role requires candidates to be local to the DC Metro Area and work 2–3 days/week in the McLean, VA office — it is not fully remote.
Degree requirement is listed as 'Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D.' with no 'or equivalent experience' language; however, because multiple degree levels are accepted and the field is broad, this is treated as a minimum Bachelor's preferred rather than a hard gate — the degree requirement is set to None given the multi-level optionality and the role's emphasis on hands-on experience.
The JD mentions 'Ability to hold a position of public trust with the U.S. Government' — this is a suitability/background-check requirement, not a formal US security clearance (no Secret/TS gate stated), so the clearance requirement is set to None.
PyTorch and TensorFlow are listed as alternatives in the same 'such as' clause; LangChain and LlamaIndex are similarly interchangeable options from the same requirement.
AWS, Azure, and GCP are listed together as acceptable cloud platforms — AWS is used as the primary name with Azure and GCP as alternatives.
MLOps and AutoML appear in the overview/narrative framing rather than the formal Qualifications section, so they are marked as preferred.
The alt SOC (15-2051 Data Scientists) reflects that the role involves ML modeling, experimentation, and RAG pipelines alongside software engineering; however, the primary framing is building production AI applications and services, making 15-1252 the stronger fit.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): multi-agent orchestration.
Read the full posting
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