Senior Agentic AI Engineer / AI R&D Lead

About Leading Edge Skills

Leading Edge Skills LLC (LES) is an established California-based organization and federal contractor delivering leadership development, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data analytics, technology training, and consulting to defense agencies, civilian government organizations, and commercial clients.

Our federal portfolio includes multi-year programs with the U.S. Navy's NAVSEA/NSWCDD, NAVSUP/Navy Supply Corps School, Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division, and the U.S. Army.

These engagements encompass leadership and advanced management development, AI and emerging technology applications, mission- and capability-based test and evaluation, digital engineering, modeling and simulation, cybersecurity education, and professional workforce development.

LES has delivered 60+ leadership development cohorts under an ongoing Navy program. Our defense program footprint extends across Dahlgren, Virginia Beach, Newport, Port Hueneme, and the San Diego region, supporting scientists, engineers, military personnel, technical professionals, and senior leaders. Our broader experience includes cybersecurity workforce development for the California Department of Rehabilitation.

Our next strategic direction is technology research and development. Building on our established defense contracting experience, LES is developing capabilities in applied AI, autonomous systems, cybersecurity innovation, intelligent decision-support, and advanced simulation.

We intend to pursue long-term R&D, SBIR/STTR, prototype development, and technology commercialization opportunities with DoD agencies and other federal organizations.

We seek technically accomplished innovators who can bring original ideas, demonstrated engineering expertise, and a commitment to developing practical technologies that address defense mission challenges.

Position Overview

LES is seeking an accomplished Senior Agentic AI Engineer / AI R&D Lead to help conceptualize, architect, develop, and validate innovative AI technologies for defense and government applications.

We are particularly interested in engineers, researchers, and technical innovators who have personally designed and built functional AI systems, including agentic AI platforms, multi-agent applications, intelligent decision-support tools, autonomous workflows, and advanced analytical solutions.

The successful candidate will contribute to emerging technology research, technical feasibility assessments, software architecture, prototype development, and selected federal R&D pursuits.

This is a hands-on technical position for someone capable of personally engineering and demonstrating technology, not simply advising on AI adoption or delivering instructional programs.

We value candidates with an entrepreneurial mindset who can recognize emerging technological opportunities and help transform promising ideas into defensible research concepts and commercially viable products.

Key ResponsibilitiesAI Engineering and Prototype Development

• Design, develop, and validate sophisticated agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications.
• Engineer autonomous and human-supervised AI agents that perform complex analytical tasks and support operational decision-making.
• Build multi-agent workflows involving planning, reasoning, orchestration, information retrieval, and external tool integration.
• Develop functional software prototypes using Python, AI frameworks, APIs, and contemporary development practices.
• Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), structured data pipelines, knowledge representations, and vector databases where appropriate.
• Integrate AI components with secure backend systems, databases, cloud environments, and enterprise applications.
• Develop systems incorporating explainability, audit trails, human oversight, and reliable outputs.
• Personally test, troubleshoot, optimize, and demonstrate engineered solutions.

Applied AI Research and Innovation

• Identify innovative technical approaches to complex defense and government challenges.
• Evaluate existing technologies and determine opportunities for meaningful technical advancement.
• Formulate research hypotheses, feasibility experiments, and measurable technical objectives.
• Investigate emerging capabilities involving agentic AI, multimodal systems, advanced reasoning, optimization, and AI evaluation.
• Develop methods for assessing accuracy, reliability, robustness, scalability, transparency, and uncertainty.
• Produce technical research findings, experimental evidence, feasibility reports, and documented demonstrations.
• Contribute original ideas capable of supporting future technology development and intellectual property.

Defense R&D and SBIR/STTR Initiatives

• Evaluate DoD technology requirements and determine whether innovative AI solutions are technically feasible.
• Collaborate with LES leadership, systems engineers, defense SMEs, and other technical professionals.
• Develop technical approaches responsive to individual SBIR/STTR research topics and related defense innovation opportunities.
• Prepare technical architectures, experimental plans, development roadmaps, research milestones, and prototype specifications.
• Contribute technical documentation to government R&D proposals.
• Assess development resources, technical risks, and opportunities for transition to operational use.
• Potentially serve as a technical lead or Principal Investigator on suitable projects, subject to applicable eligibility and employment requirements.

Product Development and Commercialization

• Identify opportunities to mature research concepts into functional software products.
• Recommend scalable technical architectures and practical implementation strategies.
• Evaluate government and commercial applications of proposed technologies.
• Help develop prototype-to-product roadmaps and technology commercialization strategies.
• Support long-term collaborative R&D relationships and emerging LES technology initiatives.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, or a closely related discipline, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.
• At least seven years of professional software engineering experience, including significant hands-on AI/ML development.
• Demonstrated experience personally architecting, coding, testing, and deploying advanced AI applications or technical prototypes.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and software development best practices.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, agentic AI frameworks, orchestration, and API integrations.
• Experience implementing functional AI workflows beyond basic prompt engineering or chatbot configuration.
• Strong understanding of AI application architecture, structured data, system integration, and evaluation methodologies.
• Experience with Git, automated testing, debugging, and technical documentation.
• Ability to develop a proof of concept independently or lead a small technical development team.
• Strong analytical thinking, independent problem-solving, and technical communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree or PhD in AI, Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a related discipline.
• Hands-on experience with LangGraph, LangChain, AutoGen, Semantic Kernel, or comparable frameworks.
• Experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, vector databases, and advanced data architectures.
• Experience with intelligent decision-support, autonomous systems, simulation, optimization, or AI evaluation platforms.
• Understanding of explainable AI, human-in-the-loop decision-making, responsible AI, and secure AI architectures.
• Experience developing AI applications for government, defense, aerospace, or mission-critical environments.
• Previous involvement in SBIR/STTR, DARPA, DoD research programs, or technology commercialization.
• Published research, patents, public code repositories, commercial AI products, or demonstrable technical inventions.
• Experience as a startup founder, principal engineer, or technical R&D lead.

Initial Areas of Technical Interest

Depending on specific opportunities, the selected professional may contribute to:

• Agentic AI for defense decision management and acquisition analysis.
• AI-enabled operational decision-support systems.
• Explainable and auditable AI recommendations.
• Human-AI collaboration and intelligent analytical workflows.
• AI model evaluation and performance benchmarking.
• Mission-oriented data analysis and predictive decision intelligence.
• Intelligent simulation and scenario evaluation.
• Secure autonomous software architectures.

These are areas of strategic interest, not a guarantee that every area will be included in the initial assignment.

Initial Engagement and Expected Deliverables

Initial projects may include:

• Assessing a specific defense R&D opportunity and its technical requirements.
• Proposing an innovative solution and explaining its technical differentiation.
• Developing a system architecture and feasibility research plan.
• Identifying prototype requirements, development resources, and research risks.
• Producing a functional proof of concept when included in an authorized paid scope.
• Establishing measurable testing and validation criteria.
• Contributing technical material to research proposals and development roadmaps.

The Candidate We Want

We are interested in builders, inventors, and technically accomplished engineers with a demonstrated ability to translate complex ideas into working software.

Candidates should possess intellectual curiosity, original thinking, technical ownership, and an interest in helping develop a long-term defense technology R&D capability.

Prior government contracting experience is helpful but not essential. Proven technical engineering accomplishments are more important.

This is not a traditional AI trainer, general AI consultant, prompt-engineering-only specialist, or purely managerial position.

How to Apply

Please submit:

• Your current resume or technical professional profile.
• Descriptions of two AI systems, applications, or prototypes you personally developed, including your specific contributions.
• Relevant GitHub repositories, publications, patents, product demonstrations, or other nonconfidential technical work samples, where available.
• A brief explanation of your research interests and why you are interested in defense technology innovation.
• Attitude required:
• Honesty, humility, and integrity
• Inclusive and respectful
• Strong work ethic
• Passion for learning
• Comfortable with autonomy
• Eager to add new skills and grow professionally
• Skills that are preferred, but not required:
• Curiosity
• Assertiveness
• A love of IT and/or technology

Job Types: Part-time, Contract

Pay: $100.00 - $150.00 per hour

Work Location: Remote