Associate Applied AI Engineer

In this hands-on, client-facing role, you will turn an incompletely defined business need into production-quality software that integrates applied AI capabilities. You will partner with stakeholders to define requirements, design and build AI-enabled applications, evaluate outcomes, and help deliver demos and proof-of-concepts.

Responsibilities

• Translate a defined technical approach into production-quality functionality.
• Participate in requirements discussions with business stakeholders to understand workflow, business need, and desired outcomes.
• Share ideas and alternative approaches during solution design, including opportunities to simplify the solution or reduce the AI component where appropriate.
• Build complete applications that integrate AI capabilities using prompt and retrieval design, structured outputs, tool and function definitions, API integration, data handling, error handling, and user-facing functionality.
• Create evaluation sets from real data, measure results against expectations, and report findings accurately, including outcomes that do not support the chosen approach.
• Investigate failures by identifying where a capability produced incorrect results, characterizing the cause, and implementing fixes.
• Support client demonstrations and proof-of-concepts to help customers apply AI to their business challenges.
• Seek feedback, ask thoughtful questions, and expand understanding of client needs and AI best practices.
• Instrument and document work, including logging, traceability, intended behavior, known limitations, validation methods, and failure handling.
• Adapt to changing work needs across client delivery, internal product work, rapid proofs of concept, and internal enablement.
• Raise blockers, unclear requirements, and results you do not trust early rather than working around them.
• Contribute reusable patterns, prompts, and evaluation harnesses to the team.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (or equivalent demonstrated ability).
• 1+ years of professional software development experience.
• Hands-on experience building applications that integrate large language models, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, structured extraction, and/or tool use. Experience may be gained through professional work, internships, academic research, or significant personal/open-source projects.
• Experience contributing to applications integrating AI capabilities with APIs, data handling, and user-facing functionality.
• Familiarity with a general-purpose language such as Python, TypeScript, or SQL, including integrating APIs and working with imperfect data.
• Ability to conduct a requirements conversation with a non-technical stakeholder, identify underlying needs, and return with a proposed approach.
• Willingness to question designs, including work provided by others, and advocate for alternatives.
• Ability to work through ambiguous requirements with guidance, ask thoughtful questions, and drive assigned work to completion.
• Clear written and verbal communication, with an understanding that this role produces documentation and materials for clients to read.
• Candor about the limits of your knowledge and willingness to ask rather than assume.
• U.S. Citizenship required, with ability to obtain and maintain any federal government background investigation, suitability determination, or security clearance required by assigned client engagements.

Technologies

• Python
• TypeScript
• SQL
• AWS Bedrock
• Azure OpenAI
• Appian
• OutSystems
• Mendix
• Microsoft Power Platform
• ServiceNow
• Salesforce

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior client-facing work in consulting, solutions engineering, professional services, or implementation.
• Experience with a low-code or application platform such as Appian, OutSystems, Mendix, Microsoft Power Platform, ServiceNow, or Salesforce.
• Public sector or regulated-industry delivery experience.
• Experience with cloud AI services such as AWS Bedrock or Azure OpenAI.
• Familiarity with LLM evaluation or observability tooling.
• Personal or open source projects involving language models, agents, retrieval, or evaluation.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
• Flexible Spending Account
• 4% 401K Match (immediate vesting)
• Paid Time Off
• Tuition reimbursement, certification programs, and professional development
• Flexible work schedule
• On-site gym and childcare option

Location and Compensation

Location: Virginia (onsite)

Compensation: USD 88,177 - 171,637 per yearly

Notes

Groundswell does not accept unsolicited resumes through or from search firms or staffing agencies. All unsolicited resumes will be considered the property of Groundswell, and Groundswell will not be obligated to pay a placement fee.

Additional Resources

• EO 13496 Notification of Employee Rights under NLRA
• Know your rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal

Disability Accessibility and Accommodation

If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, contact [email protected] or 703-639-1777.