Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Raft is a customer-obsessed defense technology company that develops AI/ML, data, and autonomous systems for U.S. military and government agencies. The Lead AI/ML Software Engineer will provide hands-on technical leadership for the [R]AIMS AI Mission System, driving architecture, major technical initiatives, distributed systems performance, engineering standards, and AI/ML platform integration. The role also includes mentoring engineers and engaging directly with defense customers and program stakeholders.
Responsibilities
- Drive architectural decisions across the [R]AIMS platform, evaluating tradeoffs across performance, scalability, security, and maintainability and building alignment across engineering and product stakeholders
- Lead major technical epics from conception through delivery, decomposing ambiguous problems into executable plans and keeping cross-functional teams moving with clarity and momentum
- Simplify and rationalize distributed system architecture as the platform scales, reducing incidental complexity and improving operational reliability without sacrificing capability
- Optimize platform performance across both edge and cloud deployment targets, identifying and resolving bottlenecks in data-intensive, latency-sensitive operational environments
- Establish strong engineering foundations and reusable technical patterns that improve developer productivity and code quality across the team
- Mentor engineers at multiple levels, conducting design reviews, providing substantive code feedback, and actively elevating technical execution across the platform
- Partner with AI/ML engineers on model integration, inference optimization, and the operational deployment of agentic workflows within [R]AIMS
- Engage directly with customers and program stakeholders at operationally demanding environments across the Department of Defense, representing Raft’s technical capabilities with credibility and clarity
Skills
- This is a U.S. based position. All of the programs we support require U.S. citizenship to be eligible for employment. All work must be conducted within the continental U.S
- • 6+ years of hands-on experience building and shipping production software systems across the full stack (frontend, backend, infrastructure, and ML)
- • Deep software engineering fundamentals with demonstrated ability to design, build, and evolve complex systems that perform reliably at scale
- • Exceptional technical communication skills; able to lead through influence across engineering, product, and leadership stakeholders without requiring direct authority
- • Proven experience designing and evolving distributed systems, including service decomposition, inter-service communication patterns, fault tolerance, and observability
- • Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native platform architecture in production environments
- • Experience building data-intensive or AI-enabled production systems with real operational users and real performance constraints
- • Demonstrated technical leadership over large, cross-functional engineering initiatives with clear ownership and accountability for outcomes
- • Strong system design and architecture decision-making ability, with a track record of making the right call under incomplete information
- • Some experience or exposure to training, fine-tuning, or deploying machine learning models in production contexts
- • Ability to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment
- • US citizenship required; ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI clearance
- • No clearance required to start
- • Must be eligible for and willing to obtain a Top Secret/SCI clearance; active clearance preferred
- • Remote within the U.S.; preference for candidates located near a Raft hub (McLean, VA; Colorado Springs, CO; Tacoma, WA; Oahu, HI, Tampa, FL; Boston, MA)
- • Up to 25% travel
- • Experience building AI/ML infrastructure or agentic systems, including orchestration frameworks, tool-use patterns, and LLM integration in production
- • Experience with streaming and event-driven architectures, particularly Kafka, Kafka Streams, or Apache Flink
- • Experience with platform engineering and internal developer tooling, including golden-path frameworks, shared libraries, and developer experience improvements
- • Experience with real-time inference or operational AI systems in latency-sensitive environments
- • Experience building secure, compliant systems for regulated or mission-critical environments, including familiarity with IL4/IL5/IL6 requirements or RMF processes
- • Prior work in defense, national security, or classified program environments
- • Active clearance preferred
- • Must be eligible for and willing to obtain a Top Secret/SCI clearance; active clearance preferred
Benefits
- Remote within the U.S.
- Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
- 401(k) and company match
- Take as you need PTO + 11 paid holidays
- Education & training benefits
- Generous Referral Bonuses
Company Overview