Job Description:
Ignite is an ISO 9001:2015 and CMMI Services Level 3 certified, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), headquartered in Huntsville, AL. Ignite is a provider of professional services to customers in defense, federal, and commercial industries and in every action seeks to be the preeminent provider within this business space. Ignite upholds our values of competency, collaboration, innovation, reliability, and results through everything we do.
Ignite is hiring an AI/ML Software Engineer in Huntsville, AL. This is a hands-on engineering position suited for early-career professionals who are eager to grow technically in a fast-moving environment. The employee will work within a dedicated AI and Automation team and collaborate closely with cross-functional teams spanning Software Development, Data Analytics, and Infrastructure, contributing meaningfully to architecture decisions, development work, and deployment operations from day one. The ideal candidate brings a strong foundation in AI/ML concepts, modern software development practices, and the adaptability to work across frontend, backend, and infrastructure as needed.
Responsibilities
AI/ML Development and Integration
- Develop and integrate AI/ML capabilities into mission-focused web applications, including large language model (LLM) integration, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines, and intelligent automation workflows
- Assist in the design and implementation of data ingestion, embedding, vector search, and model serving pipelines
- Support prompt engineering, model evaluation, and performance tuning for deployed AI features
- Research and prototype emerging AI/ML tools, frameworks, and techniques to identify opportunities for mission improvement
- Support the design and development of agentic AI systems, including autonomous agents capable of multi-step planning, tool use, and orchestrated task execution within mission workflows
Full-Stack Application Development
- Build and maintain web application features using modern frontend frameworks (e.g., React, TypeScript) and backend frameworks (e.g., Python, FastAPI)
- Design and implement RESTful APIs and contribute to database design and query optimization (e.g., PostgreSQL)
- Write clean, testable, and well-documented code following team coding standards and established design patterns
- Participate in code reviews, sprint planning, and collaborative development within an Agile workflow
CI/CD and DevSecOps
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines for automated testing, security scanning, and deployment
- Support containerized application builds and deployments using Docker and container orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes)
- Assist with static application security testing (SAST) integration and remediation of findings within the development pipeline
- Help maintain and improve infrastructure-as-code configurations and deployment automation scripts
Collaboration and Communication
- Collaborate with the AI and Automation team to plan, estimate, and deliver work in iterative development cycles
- Document technical designs, implementation decisions, and operational procedures for team and stakeholder reference
- Support demonstrations, briefings, and technical reviews for program leadership and government stakeholders
Required Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Data Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical field
Experience
- Professional experience in software development, AI/ML engineering, or a related technical role (internship and academic project experience considered)
Technical Skills
- Proficiency in Python and at least one modern web development language or framework (e.g., JavaScript/TypeScript, React)
- Foundational understanding of AI/ML concepts, including natural language processing (NLP), large language models (LLMs), embeddings, and vector search
- Experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server) and RESTful API design
- Familiarity with version control systems (Git) and collaborative development workflows (branching strategies, merge requests, code reviews)
- Basic understanding of containerization (Docker) and container orchestration concepts (Kubernetes)
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipeline concepts and at least one CI/CD platform (e.g., GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins)
- Exposure to at least one cloud platform (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud) and general understanding of cloud-native application architecture
Security Clearance
- Active Secret security clearance
Certification
- Must obtain CompTIA Security+ certification (or equivalent DoD 8570/8140 baseline certification) within 30 days of start date
Work Environment
- On-site position at a U.S. government facility in Huntsville, AL
- Small, collaborative team environment with direct mentorship from senior engineers
- Opportunity to contribute to meaningful mission outcomes through hands-on engineering of AI-driven solutions
- Fast-paced environment where you will be encouraged to learn, experiment, and grow your technical capabilities
Preferred Qualifications
Education
- Bachelor's degree with a concentration or specialization in Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning
- Relevant graduate coursework or a Master's degree in AI/ML, Computer Science, or a related field
Experience and Skills
- Experience building or contributing to RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) architectures or LLM-powered applications
- Hands-on experience with AI/ML frameworks and libraries such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face Transformers, PyTorch, or TensorFlow
- Exposure to agentic AI concepts and frameworks, including multi-agent orchestration, tool-use patterns, and autonomous task execution (e.g., LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar)
- Experience with FastAPI, Flask, or Django for building backend services
- Experience with React, Next.js, or similar component-based frontend frameworks and UI libraries (e.g., Material UI)
- Familiarity with SAST tools (e.g., Semgrep, SonarQube, Bandit) and secure software development practices
- Experience with Kubernetes (e.g., GKE, EKS, AKS) in a development or deployment capacity
- Exposure to infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, Helm) or GitOps workflows
- Experience developing or deploying applications within U.S. government or Department of Defense IT environments
- Familiarity with FedRAMP, IL4/IL5, or CMEK compliance concepts in cloud environments
Certifications (any of the following are a plus)
- AWS Certified Machine Learning - Specialty or AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
- Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer or Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer
- Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate or Azure Developer Associate
