Senior AI Engineer

Expression is seeking a Senior AI Engineer to help design, develop, integrate, and evaluate secure, mission-focused AI and LLM capabilities supporting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This onsite role in Shirlington, VA focuses on turning AI workflows into production-quality software that supports investigative analysis, information retrieval, report generation, and human decision support.

What you’ll do

• Support implementation of secure, mission-focused AI applications within the DHS AI environment.
• Develop and integrate multi-agent AI workflows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), intelligent document-processing capabilities, and AI evaluation frameworks.
• Enable use cases spanning investigative analysis, information retrieval, report generation, and human decision support.
• Collaborate with AI architects, data engineers, and Government stakeholders to build, test, and improve production-quality AI capabilities in an established enterprise environment.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical field, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
• 9+ years of professional experience in software engineering, AI engineering, or AI test automation, including substantial recent hands-on experience developing, integrating, or evaluating enterprise AI applications.
• Demonstrated experience building, deploying, or evaluating LLM-powered and generative AI solutions in enterprise or production-oriented environments, with direct implementation responsibility.
• Strong Python programming and debugging skills, including backend development, RESTful APIs, asynchronous programming, modular application design, and automated testing.
• Experience with FastAPI, Pydantic, asyncio, or comparable technologies.
• Hands-on expertise in at least one of the following AI engineering specializations:
  • Multi-Agent Orchestration & Model Integration, including development of multi-agent applications with frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, or comparable tools, plus model/tool integrations, structured agent handoffs, stateful workflows, prompt management, and bounded execution.
• Hands-on expertise in at least one of the following AI engineering specializations:
  • Grounded AI Applications & RAG, including design and implementation of RAG pipelines, document processing, source-grounded generation, prompt/output validation, citation handling, and AI-assisted document generation or human-reviewed workflows.
• Hands-on expertise in at least one of the following AI engineering specializations:
  • AI Assurance, Evaluation & Observability, including automated LLM evaluation frameworks, regression suites, model reliability tests, adversarial testing, prompt-injection defenses, and application observability capabilities.
• Experience integrating AI applications with enterprise data platforms, APIs, or retrieval services, including secure access to structured or unstructured data.
• Experience designing and implementing secure AI applications, including authentication, authorization, permission-aware data access, sensitive-data handling, and appropriate human oversight.
• Experience with LLM application evaluation and reliability, including response quality, factual grounding, hallucination mitigation, error handling, and model performance measurement.
• Experience with modern software engineering practices, including Git, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and software configuration management.
• Experience developing or deploying cloud-native or containerized applications using Docker, AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, or comparable technologies.
• Ability to translate technical requirements into production-quality AI software components, integration designs, test cases, and engineering documentation.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and communication skills to collaborate with AI architects, data engineers, and technical stakeholders on complex integration challenges.
• Security Clearance: Secret clearance required with eligibility for TS/SCI.

Technologies

• Python, FastAPI, Pydantic, asyncio, RESTful APIs
• LangGraph, LangChain, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen
• RAG, Git, CI/CD pipelines
• Docker, AWS, Azure, Kubernetes

Preferred qualifications

• Experience integrating AI applications with Palantir, Databricks, Elasticsearch, or comparable governed enterprise data platforms.
• Experience implementing Responder–Evaluator–Reporter architectures, multi-model ensembles, model comparison, or structured AI output verification.
• Experience with LLMOps platforms, prompt/model version management, evaluation tooling, and reproducible AI release processes.
• Experience supporting Federal Government, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, Department of Homeland Security, or similarly regulated environments.
• Familiarity with Government cybersecurity, privacy, accessibility, data governance, and software authorization requirements.
• Experience adapting existing AI algorithms, research prototypes, or software components into operational enterprise applications.
• Experience supporting technical demonstrations, Government acceptance testing, operational pilots, or production AI system sustainment.

Compensation and location

• Location: Shirlington, VA (onsite)
• Salary: USD 180,000 - 210,000 per year

Benefits

• 401k matching
• PPO and HDHP medical/dental/vision insurance
• Education reimbursement up to $10,000/yr
• Complimentary life insurance
• Generous PTO and 11 days of holiday leave
• Commuter Benefits Plan