> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt. # SME AI/ML Engineer Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/d352e42f898d7f14 Agile Defense posts a senior FDE role to build what the customer runs in Fort Meade, MD with no pay posted. Senior AI/ML engineering role supporting a central AI Enterprise capability that moves prototypes into secure, governed, enterprise-scale services for cyber operations and national mission environments. Read from the employer’s posting on November 9, 2026. - [Agile Defense](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/agile-defense) Posted Oct 8, 2026 by Agile Defense · open on Lever as of Nov 9, 2026 Pay not posted Fort Meade, MD On-site Senior AI/ML engineering role supporting a central AI Enterprise capability that moves prototypes into secure, governed, enterprise-scale services for cyber operations and national mission environments. - [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2Fd352e42f898d7f14&placement=top) - [View posting at Agile Defense](https://jobs.lever.co/agile-defense/4ac86a23-3302-41ea-bac8-58f716f8a19b/apply) Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so. ## At a glance ### Posted base pay Not posted Senior FDE postings, 1,868 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K. ### The work Builds what the customer runs Balance **Mostly building** Project stages 1. Pre-sales (not covered) 2. Proof of concept 3. Implementation 4. Operations - **Coding**: Writes production code - **Builds for**: External customers - **Level**: Senior - **Role**: Individual contributor ### What they ask for Experience - **10+ years** Professional experience with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related discipline - **4+ years** Additional professional experience in lieu of a bachelor's degree, for 14 years total Background - **Implementation and data engineering** ### Do you meet what the posting states? The posting asks for 4+ years. How many do you have? The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now? The job is in Fort Meade, MD. Could you work there? Which of these have you used in production? Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent. [What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths) ## Conditions - **Location**: Fort Meade, MD - **Work arrangement**: On-site ## More like this [SixGen](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/sixgen) ### [AI/ML Engineer-TS/SCI & CI POLY](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/682d29a4a47903cc) Columbia, MD 4w ago $215,000–$240,000 [SpaceX](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/spacex) ### [Mission Integration Engineer, AI (Starshield) - Top Secret Clearance](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/1c29fc4f0419b4c0) Hawthorne, CA 5mo ago $100,000–$135,000 [Defense Unicorns](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/defense-unicorns) ### [Senior Platform Engineer (FedD239)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/2d80b4f518bdc61d) Springfield, VA Remote 5w ago $148,750–$201,250 - [Other jobs at Agile Defense (13)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/agile-defense) ## The job description from Agile Defense Posted by Agile Defense on Oct 8, 2026 ### About Agile Defense At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. That’s why we always look to the future and embrace change with an unmovable spirit and the courage to build for what comes next. Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility—leveraging a foundation of speed, flexibility, and ingenuity to strengthen and protect our nation’s vital interests. **Requisition #: **1921 **Job Title:** SME AI/ML Engineer **Location:** Fort Meade, MD | Onsite **Clearance Level: **TS/SCI w/ Polygraph, Must Have Clearance to Start ### Job Description Ready for a challenge that puts you at the center of AI innovation for cyber operations? Are you an experienced AI/ML engineer who thrives in a fast-paced environment, enjoys turning research and prototypes into real mission capability, and wants to help shape how AI is built and delivered across a national mission? Our team is standing up an AI Enterprise capability — the central hub that mission teams turn to when they want to move an AI solution from prototype to a secure, governed, enterprise-scale service. As a Senior AI/ML Engineer on this team, you will design and integrate the models, agents, and AI workflows that run on that platform, with significant, visible impact on the mission. ### What You'll Be Doing - Provide embedded operations support, capability integration, and rapid prototyping for AI/ML-enabled tools in support of our customer. Design and integrate LLM/agent orchestration workflows using agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, Agno, and the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit. - Tune model gateway routing logic to select, evaluate, and optimize across multiple frontier and open-weight models for cost, performance, and mission fit. - Develop and integrate RAG pipelines, vector databases, and memory services to give agents access to mission knowledge and context. - Implement MCP (Model Context Protocol)-based tool-broker integrations so agents can safely and securely access enterprise tools and data. - Evaluate, benchmark, and tune models and agent behaviors; build automated evaluation pipelines to track quality, safety, and performance over time. - Partner with data scientists and mission analysts to translate research and prototypes into production-grade AI capabilities for the command. - Implement AI governance guardrails — content/safety filters, policy enforcement, and approval gates — for agentic workflows, and document model/agent architectures and evaluation results for reuse. - Research and evaluate emerging LLM, agent, and AI tooling to keep the command's AI capability current and adaptable. ### Basic Qualifications - Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related discipline and 10+ years of experience; 4 additional years of experience may be considered in lieu of degree - Experience supporting mission environments - Experience with frameworks such as LangGraph, Agno, or the NVIDIA NeMo Agent Toolkit - Experience with model inference/serving platforms (NVIDIA NIM, vLLM, Ollama, LiteLLM) - Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar tool-broker/integration standards - Experience with AI evaluation frameworks, model benchmarking, and observability (logs/metrics/traces) for AI workloads - Active TS/SCI w/ polygraph ### Our Core Values Employees of Agile Defense are our number one priority, and the importance we place on our culture here is fundamental. Our culture is alive and evolving, but it always stays true to its roots. Here, you are valued as a family member, and we believe that we can accomplish great things together. Agile Defense has been highly successful in the past few years due to our employees and the culture we create together. What makes us Agile? We call it the 6Hs, the values that define our culture and guide everything we do. Together, these values infuse vibrancy, integrity, and a tireless work ethic into advancing the most important national security and critical civilian missions. It's how we show up every day. It's who we are. - **Happy **- Be Infectious. Happiness multiplies and creates a positive and connected environment where motivation and satisfaction have an outsized effect on everything we do. - **Helpful** - Be Supportive. Being helpful is the foundation of teamwork, resulting in a supportive atmosphere where collaboration flourishes, and collective success is celebrated. - **Honest** - Be Trustworthy. Honesty serves as our compass, ensuring transparent communication and ethical conduct, essential to who we are and the complex domains we support. - **Humble** - Be Grounded. Success is not achieved alone, humility ensures a culture of mutual respect, encouraging open communication, and a willingness to learn from one another and take on any task. - **Hungry **- Be Eager. Our hunger for excellence drives an insatiable appetite for innovation and continuous improvement, propelling us forward in the face of new and unprecedented challenges. - **Hustle** - Be Driven. Hustle is reflected in our relentless work ethic, where we are each committed to going above and beyond to advance the mission and achieve success. ### Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities [View posting at Agile Defense](https://jobs.lever.co/agile-defense/4ac86a23-3302-41ea-bac8-58f716f8a19b/apply) ## About Agile Defense AI-enabled federal contractor delivering digital transformation, cybersecurity, and data/AI analytics to DoD, intelligence, homeland security, and civilian agencies. Late-stage private · 2000–5000 people ## Similar jobs [Google](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/google) ### [Forward Deployed Engineer IV, Generative AI, Google Cloud](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/e7df1eb35192cccd) Pittsburgh, PA 9d ago $207,000–$300,000 [NewRocket](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/newrocket) ### [Forward Deployed AI Engineer-Anthropic-US West](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/1b1d8f6214ffc95c) US Remote 2mo ago Pay not posted [Scale AI](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/scale-ai) ### [Senior Frontier Agents Engineer (Applied AI)](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/ad5a80e79ff38092) San Francisco, CA · New York, NY · +1 more 3mo ago $216,000–$270,000 [Accenture](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/accenture) ### [AI Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/6801db30761f80db) San Diego, CA 5mo ago $115,300–$160,100 [Booz Allen](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/booz-allen) ### [Cloud Solutions Architect](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7f2420f4730d4610) Fayetteville, NC New · 2d ago $99,000–$225,000 - [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior) - [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers) Hiring at Agile Defense and want this page changed or removed? 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