AI/ML Data Engineer

Precise Software Solutions Incorporated is seeking an AI/ML Data Engineer to help build and govern the data foundation that powers secure, AI-enabled applications for the U.S. Government. In this onsite role in Washington, DC, you will own AI-ready datasets end-to-end, from ingestion and quality controls to privacy protection, lineage, and retrieval-quality measurement, while supporting measurable and operationally secure AI.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain data ingestion, transformation, and processing pipelines (ETL/ELT) for AI training, evaluation, retrieval, and operations, including data migration and cleansing support.
• Curate, validate, and version datasets; maintain dataset inventories, metadata, lineage, provenance, and ingestion logs.
• Implement automated data-quality checks for duplication, schema changes, completeness, and freshness; maintain dataset quality scorecards and drift reports.
• Design data models, vector stores, and embedding schemas for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) knowledge bases, including re-indexing content when sources change.
• Measure retrieval and model quality against established baselines using metrics such as precision/recall, MRR, NDCG, and context relevance.
• Prepare data-related deliverables, including AI model cards, ML and AI pipeline documentation, RAG/AI Pipeline Evaluation Reports, data dictionaries and embedding schema documentation, and responses to Government data calls.
• Build secure structured-data access for AI applications (for example, natural-language-to-SQL with query validation and role-based authorization), and support dashboards and operational analytics.
• Monitor data and ML pipelines, troubleshoot failures, and support root-cause analysis while keeping data in FedRAMP-authorized cloud regions with FIPS-validated encryption.
• Support Responsible AI practices by preparing representative evaluation datasets, testing AI outputs for bias, accuracy, and hallucination, and documenting results to meet federal AI governance requirements.
• Secure the AI data path, from source datasets and embeddings to prompts and logs, and support AI risk testing such as data poisoning.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Information Systems, or a related field, plus 5+ years of relevant experience (equivalent experience may substitute for the degree).
• 5+ years of hands-on data engineering or database development experience, including data modeling, SQL, and ETL/ELT pipeline development.
• Strong proficiency in Python; experience with data processing frameworks such as pandas and Spark and workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow.
• 1+ year of experience preparing data for Generative AI or machine learning, including embeddings, vector databases, RAG knowledge bases, or training and evaluation datasets.
• Experience implementing data quality, lineage, metadata management, and data governance controls.
• Experience protecting sensitive data (PII), including masking, minimization, and access controls.
• Experience with a major cloud data platform (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud), Git, and CI/CD tools.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (green card holder).
• Must reside in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and be able to work on-site at Government offices.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust background investigation.

Technologies

• Python, pandas, Spark, Airflow
• AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
• Git, CI/CD
• Vector stores, vector databases, pgvector, OpenSearch
• FIPS-validated encryption, FedRAMP-authorized cloud regions
• Natural-language-to-SQL

Benefits

• Comprehensive Health Benefits (Medical, Dental and Vision)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Retirement Plan with 4% match and discretionary match at year end
• Paid Time Off (PTO): 15 days of PTO accrued per year; 7 holidays + 3 Floating holidays; 2 Innovation days (paid training days)
• Short Term and Long-Term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Paid Jury Duty leave
• Life and AD&D Insurance
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Training and Development
• Wellness Incentives & Discount programs
• Employee Referral Program
• Annual Charity Donation Match
• Awards and Recognition

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in a related field and 7+ years of data engineering experience, including support of federal agency programs.
• Experience evaluating retrieval quality and building RAG pipelines with vector stores (for example, pgvector, OpenSearch).
• Experience with MLOps tooling, including model and dataset versioning, feature stores, or model registries.
• Generative AI, LLM security, or data certification (for example, Databricks Generative AI Engineer, Snowflake SnowPro, AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud).
• An active Public Trust or prior federal background investigation.

Location: Washington, DC (onsite)
Experience: 5+ years
Education: Bachelor’s degree