AI/ML Engineer III (Aerospace & Defense)

Location: Lone Tree, Colorado, United States; hybrid work environment with occasional travel of up to 10–20% to testing sites, customer locations, or conferences.

Salary: $124,771.42–$171,560.71 per year.

Company

Aerospace and national security organization developing manned and unmanned aircraft systems, C4ISR capabilities, and mission-critical technologies.

What you will do

• Lead the design, development, deployment, and optimization of advanced machine learning models, including deep neural networks, reinforcement learning, generative AI, and transformers.
• Architect scalable AI/ML systems integrated with software and hardware platforms across CPU and GPU environments.
• Develop signal processing, computer vision, planning, simulation, and modeling algorithms for autonomous systems.
• Manage project scope, resources, timelines, technical communication, and collaboration with systems engineers, hardware teams, data scientists, leadership, and external partners.
• Lead validation, verification, testing, safety, compliance, reliability, and performance activities for real-world mission applications.
• Mentor junior engineers and guide technical decisions for aerospace and defense AI/ML development.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, mathematics, applied statistics, engineering, or a related STEM discipline, or equivalent experience.
• At least 6 years of related experience; 9 years are required in place of a degree. A higher-level degree may substitute for experience.
• Proficiency with machine learning frameworks such as TensorFlow and PyTorch, and with supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement, and generative learning techniques.
• Experience developing and deploying production AI/ML models, including ANNs, CNNs, and RNNs, and scaling systems for larger datasets.
• Strong programming skills in Python, C++, C#, or Java, plus experience leading projects or teams and mentoring junior staff.
• U.S. citizenship and the ability to obtain and maintain an active Secret U.S. Security Clearance are required.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in artificial intelligence, machine learning, or a related field.
• Leadership experience in aerospace and defense.
• Agile or DevOps experience, GPU programming, high-performance computing, CUDA, TensorRT, edge AI, or explainable AI.
• Experience with clustering, dimensionality reduction, generative modeling, heterogeneous datasets, or mission-focused system requirements.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work with cross-functional collaboration and high-priority technical deliverables.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) with a 150% company match up to 6%.
• Life insurance, three weeks of paid time off, and tuition reimbursement.
• Mission-focused work supporting aerospace, aviation, and national security systems.