Lead AI/ML Software Engineer
Raft Company Website3 months ago
Remote, Worldwide +2 moreStaff+
Base Salary
$180k - $230k/yr
Responsibilities
- Drive architectural decisions across the [R]AIMS platform, balancing performance, scalability, security, and maintainability.
- Lead major technical epics from conception through delivery and coordinate cross-functional execution.
- Simplify distributed-system architecture and improve operational reliability as the platform scales.
- Optimize performance across edge and cloud deployment targets in data-intensive, latency-sensitive environments.
- Establish reusable engineering patterns that improve developer productivity and code quality.
- Mentor engineers, conduct design reviews, provide substantive code feedback, and raise technical execution standards.
- Partner with AI/ML engineers on model integration, inference optimization, and operational deployment of agentic workflows.
- Engage directly with Department of Defense customers and program stakeholders as a technical representative.
Requirements
- At least six years of hands-on experience building and shipping production software across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and ML.
- Deep software engineering fundamentals and experience designing complex systems that operate reliably at scale.
- Proven experience designing and evolving distributed systems, including service decomposition, inter-service communication, fault tolerance, and observability.
- Strong production experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native platform architecture.
- Experience building data-intensive or AI-enabled production systems for operational users with real performance constraints.
- Demonstrated technical leadership of large, cross-functional engineering initiatives with ownership for outcomes.
- Strong system design and architecture decision-making skills.
- Some experience or exposure to training, fine-tuning, or deploying machine learning models in production.
- Ability to obtain Security+ certification within the first 90 days of employment.
- U.S. citizenship is required, along with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI clearance.
- Preferred experience includes AI/ML infrastructure, agentic systems, orchestration frameworks, tool-use patterns, LLM integration, Kafka, Kafka Streams, Apache Flink, platform engineering, internal developer tooling, real-time inference, operational AI, regulated or mission-critical systems, IL4/IL5/IL6 requirements, RMF processes, and defense or classified programs.
- Active security clearance is preferred.
Benefits
- Remote within the U.S., with preference for candidates near Raft hubs.
- Up to 25% travel.
- Fully covered healthcare, dental, and vision coverage.
- 401(k) with company match.
- Take-as-you-need paid time off and 11 paid holidays.
- Education and training benefits.
- Generous referral bonuses.
Tech Stack
Categories
About Raft Company Website
Raft is a leading defense technology company dedicated to empowering the U.S. military and government agencies with cutting-edge AI/ML and data solutions. We transform complex data into actionable insights, enabling mission-critical decisions, and changing the way we fight on earth, and beyond.