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Steampunk

AI Innovation Engineer

Published

$120,000–$180,000Mclean, VA

The AI Innovation Engineer enables public-sector client teams to adopt AI by advising stakeholders, delivering tailored education, and rapidly building mission-focused proofs-of-concept and demos.

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View posting at Steampunk

At a glance

Posted base pay

$120K–$180KLevel with the median

The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance

  1. Mostly building
  2. Mixed
  3. Mostly pre-sales or support

Project stages

  1. Pre-sales (not covered)
  2. Proof of concept
  3. Implementation (not covered)
  4. Operations (not covered)
Coding
Prototypes and scripts
Builds for
External customers
Level
Mid
Role
Technical lead

What they ask for

Experience

  • 3+ yearssoftware engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML roles

Background

  • Software engineering
  • Implementation and data engineering

Tools

  • Python
  • LangChain
  • LlamaIndex
  • AWS Bedrock
  • GCP Vertex AI
  • Azure OpenAI
  • FAISS
  • Pinecone
  • Weaviate
  • Chroma

Less common in FDE jobs

  • Coding work: Prototypes and scripts4%
  • Responsibility level: Mid5%
  • Covers proofs of concept39%
  • Individual contributor or manager: Technical lead46%

Share of US FDE postings that state each fact.

What you’ll do

  • Advise clients on modern AI capabilities, best practices, and responsible use.
  • Develop AI education materials and lead enablement events.
  • Design and implement mission-specific AI prototypes and proofs-of-concept.
  • Integrate demos with cloud platforms and reusable RAG components.

What you’ll bring

  • Hold a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, AI, ML, or a related field.
  • Have 3+ years of software engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML experience.
  • Demonstrate hands-on experience with GenAI models, RAG frameworks, cloud AI services, and vector databases.
  • Have strong Python skills and experience building data pipelines, API wrappers, and demo front-ends.

View posting at Steampunk

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Pay and conditions

Posted pay
$120,000–$180,000
Pay details

Steampunk relies on several factors to determine salary, including but not limited to geographic location, contractual requirements, education, knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience. The projected compensation range for this position is $120,000 to $180,000. The estimate displayed represents a typical annual salary range for this position. Annual salary is just one aspect of Steampunk’s total compensation package for employees. Learn more about additional Steampunk benefits here.

Location
Mclean, VA
Experience requirements
  • 3+ years: software engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML roles (required)

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