Job Title
Senior Staff Associate
Job Type
Full-time
Location
Bethesda Office - Bethesda, MD 20814 US (Primary)
Travel
Job Description
Position SummaryThe Senior AI Engineer will play a key role in building and deploying practical, scalable artificial intelligence solutions across Econometrica's projects and business operations.
The ideal candidate combines strong software engineering capabilities with expertise in generative AI, large language models (LLMs), AI agents, machine learning, and intelligent automation.
This position requires an individual who can move beyond AI experimentation to
build, integrate, and deploy production-ready AI applications. The successful candidate will work closely with technical teams, data scientists, analysts, project managers, and business leaders to identify opportunities where AI can improve quality, reduce costs, accelerate delivery, and create new capabilities.
Key ResponsibilitiesAI Application Development & Engineering- Design, develop, test, and deploy AI-powered applications using Python, LLMs, machine learning frameworks, and cloud-based AI services.
- Develop generative AI solutions using technologies such as OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, and other commercial or open-source models.
- Build AI agents and multi-step automated workflows that perform complex tasks with appropriate human oversight.
- Implement retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems that securely retrieve, analyze, and synthesize information from large document collections and structured databases.
- Develop AI-enabled applications for document processing, natural language processing, data extraction, summarization, classification, and analytical reporting.
- Integrate AI capabilities into existing enterprise applications, databases, APIs, and business workflows.
- Build reusable AI tools, APIs, and components that can be leveraged across multiple projects.
- Optimize AI systems for accuracy, performance, security, reliability, and cost.
AI Automation & Operational Efficiency- Identify opportunities to apply AI and automation to improve Econometrica's internal business processes and government contract deliverables.
- Develop intelligent automation solutions that reduce manual effort in data processing, quality assurance, reporting, and documentation.
- Build AI solutions that support research, policy analysis, statistical analysis, and program evaluation.
- Modernize legacy applications and analytical workflows using AI-assisted development and automation.
- Develop AI-powered dashboards, analytical tools, and decision-support applications.
- Measure the performance and return on investment of deployed AI solutions.
Federal Government AI Solutions- Collaborate with Econometrica's federal project teams to design AI capabilities aligned with agency requirements and mission objectives.
- Support AI solutions for healthcare analytics, regulatory compliance, program integrity, policy research, and government operations.
- Develop secure AI architectures appropriate for federal government environments.
- Incorporate applicable federal cybersecurity, data privacy, and responsible AI requirements, including NIST guidance, FISMA, and agency-specific standards.
- Support technical solution development, demonstrations, prototypes, and proposal efforts for federal AI opportunities.
- Help transition successful AI prototypes into sustainable, production-level solutions.
Technical Leadership & Collaboration- Serve as a technical subject matter expert on AI engineering, generative AI, and intelligent automation.
- Evaluate emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and platforms and recommend practical approaches for implementation.
- Collaborate with software developers, data engineers, data scientists, and subject matter experts to deliver integrated solutions.
- Establish AI engineering standards, including testing, evaluation, monitoring, documentation, and deployment practices.
- Mentor junior technical staff and help expand AI engineering capabilities across Econometrica.
- Communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Required Qualifications- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related technical discipline.
- 7+ years of professional software engineering or application development experience.
- 3+ years of experience developing AI/ML solutions, including recent hands-on experience with generative AI and LLM-based applications.
- Advanced proficiency in Python and experience developing scalable, production-quality software.
- Practical experience with LLM APIs, prompt engineering, RAG architectures, embeddings, and vector databases.
- Experience developing AI agents, workflow orchestration, or tool-calling applications.
- Experience with AI development frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, or comparable technologies.
- Strong experience with REST APIs, application integration, databases, and backend development.
- Familiarity with cloud computing platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, containerization, automated testing, and software deployment.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and debugging capabilities.
- Demonstrated ability to independently take AI applications from concept through implementation and deployment.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with multidisciplinary teams.
Preferred Qualifications- Master's degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, or a related discipline.
- Experience supporting federal government agencies, particularly CMS, HHS, CDC, HUD, or other civilian agencies.
- Experience deploying applications in FedRAMP-authorized cloud environments or supporting federal security authorization processes.
- Familiarity with healthcare data, claims analysis, Medicare or Medicaid programs, regulatory policy, or government program evaluation.
- Experience with agentic AI architectures and multi-agent orchestration.
- Knowledge of LLM evaluation, model monitoring, guardrails, hallucination mitigation, and responsible AI practices.
- Experience with PyTorch, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, or other machine learning frameworks.
- Familiarity with SQL, SAS, R, and modern data engineering platforms.
- Experience implementing AI-powered document processing, workflow automation, or enterprise knowledge-management solutions.
- Experience developing technical approaches, proof-of-concepts, and demonstrations for government proposals.
What Success Looks LikeThe successful candidate will:
- Deliver working AI applications that solve meaningful business and client problems.
- Transform repetitive, labor-intensive processes into efficient, AI-assisted workflows.
- Develop reusable AI solutions that can scale across Econometrica's contracts and business units.
- Establish effective practices for secure, reliable, and cost-efficient AI implementation.
- Help Econometrica differentiate its technical capabilities and expand its AI-related federal contracting opportunities.
Why Join Econometrica?This position offers an opportunity to help shape and expand Econometrica's AI engineering capabilities while working on meaningful challenges across federal government programs.
Unlike roles focused exclusively on AI research, this position emphasizes
building real-world AI products, deploying working solutions, and delivering measurable operational improvements.
The Senior AI Engineer will have the opportunity to influence technical strategy, introduce emerging AI technologies, and develop innovative solutions with applications across healthcare, government analytics, and public-sector operations.
