Lead AI Research Engineer

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Department Summary:

MITRE’s Artificial Intelligence & Autonomy Innovation Center is home to an interdisciplinary, diverse, and dynamic team united by a passion to catalyze consequential use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We are 250 strong and growing! We collaboratively work across government, industry, and academia to address complex AI and Autonomy challenges for the benefit of our nation. We apply our trusted technical expertise to enable the effective, assured, and responsible application of AI to critical government missions. MITRE aims to realize the transformative potential of AI for public good.

MITRE’s Trustworthy & Secure AI Department within the Artificial Intelligence & Autonomy Innovation Center consists of a diverse team united by a passion and a sense of urgency to harness trustworthy and assured artificial intelligence to help solve problems in the public interest. The Trustworthy & Secure AI (TSAI) Department supports our sponsors' missions by delivering capabilities for securing and increasing trust in AI-enabled systems, including data driven AI risk awareness and mitigation, AI red teaming, and trusted tools and techniques for applying AI in high consequence environments. The TSAI Department works across government, industry, and academia to provide, assess, and shape trustworthy and secure AI systems to address complex mission needs for our sponsors. Our work provides opportunities to address real-world challenges in the rapidly developing field of AI assurance, and to research and prototype new methods to address mission needs.

MITRE has state-of-the-art high performance computing resources and a recently acquired NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD system capable of an exaFLOP of 8-bit AI compute, enabling the development and deployment of foundation models for generative AI applications, including large language models (LLMs). We are looking for research engineers with applied technical expertise in deep learning, high-performance computing, and advanced topics in LLM deployment.

Roles & Responsibilities:

The position involves researching, developing, evaluating, and integrating AI capabilities, with a particular focus on security and trust, especially for generative AI. Specific responsibilities will include:

1. Conduct research, development, engineering, evaluation, and integration of AI, including LLMs, to help address critical national and global challenges in domains including health, transportation, law, climate change, national security and defense.
2. Provide technical and organizational leadership to cross-functional teams and complex projects with significant resource requirements and technical risks.
3. Analyze AI use cases and recommend secure and trustworthy solutions to sponsors.
4. Build, scope, and staff technical projects with government sponsors and people leaders.
5. Collaborate across government, industry, and academia to provide, assess, and shape trustworthy and secure AI-enabled systems.

Basic Qualifications:

1. Typically requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years’ experience; or equivalent combination of related education and work experience.
2. Experience leading functional teams or complex projects, developing strategies and objectives, and leading others to execute on technical challenges.
3. Hands-on experience with machine learning and one or more of the following technical areas: Generative AI, AI Security, Trustworthy AI, AI Governance, or AI T&E.
4. Excellent written and verbal communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to both lay and expert audiences.
5. Must be a US Citizen eligible for a US Government Security Clearance.
6. This position requires a minimum of 50% hybrid on-site.

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Advanced degree in computer science, engineering, or related disciplines.
2. Demonstrated advanced skills with Python and the standard ML stack (Tensorflow/Torch, NumPy, Pandas, etc.).
3. 8+ years of impactful work experience in AI-related fields.
4. Experience leading large cross-functional teams and complex projects.
5. Experience publishing consequential AI research in journals or conferences.
6. Track record of successful deployment of AI/ML systems or components that have been used by customers or stakeholders outside of a lab/experimental setting.
7. Active US Government Security Clearance.

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s): None

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s): Secret

Work Location Type: Hybrid

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