Software Engineer - AI Enabled Vulnerability Research
Visionist, Inc.6 days ago
Columbia, MD, USAStaff+
Base Salary
$187k - $264k/yr
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain AI-enabled software and research tools supporting computer network exploitation and vulnerability research.
- Lead complex software features and subsystems from requirements and design through deployment and sustainment.
- Develop agentic AI harnesses that orchestrate research tools, manage execution state, collect evidence, and evaluate results.
- Build sandbox-based dynamic analysis capabilities and integrate debugging, instrumentation, fuzzing, and crash analysis into automated workflows.
- Develop evaluations for finding validity, reproducibility, false-positive rates, and AI-assisted analysis effectiveness.
- Develop backend services, REST APIs, data pipelines, and user interfaces for research workflows and traceable results.
- Troubleshoot software, AI integration, and execution-environment issues to improve performance, reliability, and observability.
- Lead design and code reviews, document technical decisions, mentor engineers, and communicate progress and risks to stakeholders.
Requirements
- Active TS/SCI clearance with polygraph and U.S. citizenship are required; applicants must obtain or maintain a government security clearance.
- Bachelor's degree in a technical discipline or an additional four years of experience in lieu of the degree.
- At least 12 years of software engineering experience.
- Experience independently designing, developing, testing, and delivering complex software systems.
- Proficiency in Python, including modular design, object-oriented programming, and automated testing.
- Experience with AI-enabled computer network exploitation or vulnerability research and evaluation of AI-generated findings.
- Knowledge of reverse engineering, debugging, dynamic analysis, fuzzing, and crash triage.
- Experience with isolated execution environments, runtime instrumentation, execution tracing, and evidence collection.
- Experience developing LLM applications or agentic systems with tool integration, structured outputs, state management, and evaluation.
- Experience developing backend services and REST APIs with FastAPI, Flask, or Django, and relational databases such as PostgreSQL.
- Experience with Linux systems, including processes, memory, and networking.
- Experience with Git, automated testing, CI/CD, and code reviews.
- Ability to translate complex requirements into technical solutions, communicate tradeoffs, and mentor engineers.
Benefits
- Four weeks of paid time off, 12 paid holidays, comp time, overtime, and flexible work hours.
- Paid parental leave with an additional supplemental payment upon returning from maternity leave.
- Medical, dental, and vision benefits for individuals and families.
- 401(k) retirement plan with company matching contributions.
- Lifestyle bonus usable for gyms, fitness, new technology, or an HSA.
- Term life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage.
- Annual merit increases and performance-based bonuses.
Tech Stack
Categories
About Visionist, Inc.
Visionist, Inc. delivers engineering, software development, and analytical services to U.S. intelligence and defense agencies, often as a prime contractor. Its teams build mission systems and analysis tools spanning AI/ML integration, cyber and network security, digital signal processing, data analytics, and UX for analysts. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, Visionist is privately held and 100% employee-owned through an ESOP.