Booz Allen Hamilton is actively hiring for 35 AI and machine learning positions across AI/ML Engineer (27), Data Scientist (3), and Research Engineer (2) roles. Posted salary ranges span $126K - $345K, though only 25% of listings disclose compensation. The median posted ceiling sits at $198K. Positions are based in Annapolis Junction, MD, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA. The most frequently requested skills across these postings are Python, Aws, Azure, Gcp, Kubernetes. Mid-level roles account for 68% of openings.
Skills & Technologies
Locations
Annapolis Junction, MD, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, McLean, VA, US, McLean, VA
Hiring by Role Category
Open Positions (showing 25 of 35)
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer, Senior
AI/ML Engineer
Agentic AI Engineer
AI Engineer, Lead
AI and ML Engineer
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Engineer
AI/ML Engineer, Senior
Agentic Forward Deployed Engineer
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Engineer
AI/ML Engineer, Mid
Data Scientist, Mid
AI Driven Radio Access Networks Director
Frontier AI Research Engineer
Machine Learning Engineer
AI and ML Engineer and Data Scientist
Applied AI Engineer
Enterprise Agentic Platform Product Owner
AI Developer and Engineer
AI Governance Lead
Tier 3 MLOPs Engineer
AI Model Engineer
Computer Vision AI Engineer
Frontier AI Research Engineer, Lead
AI Engineer
AI-Powered Cyber Defense Product Sales Engineer
What Booz Allen Hamilton's hiring tells you
With 35 active AI roles spanning 6 role types, hiring at this scale signals AI is core to the business model, not a pilot. Companies in this tier typically have a named AI leader (VP AI, Head of ML), dedicated infrastructure budget, and a multi-year roadmap. Posted compensation range ($126K - $345K) suggests transparent and competitive pay practices.
The skill mix here leans toward Python in AI/ML Engineer roles. That is a clue about what Booz Allen Hamilton is building: teams hire for the work in front of them, not the work they wish they were doing.
Questions worth asking in the Booz Allen Hamilton interview loop
The signals above come from public job postings. The signals you actually need come from the conversation. A few questions calibrated to this company's tier:
- How is the AI org structured, and who does it report to (CTO, CEO, separate AI leader)?
- What was the most recent ML system that shipped to production, and what was the scope?
- How much of compute spend is on inference vs training, and how is that decided?
Booz Allen Hamilton AI and ML Hiring
Booz Allen Hamilton has 35 active AI and ML roles in our dataset. Open positions span AI/ML Engineer, Data Scientist, Research Engineer, MLOps Engineer. Compensation ranges from $126K - $345K across disclosed roles. Roles are based in Annapolis Junction, MD, Washington, DC, Alexandria, VA, McLean, VA, US.
Salary Benchmarks
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $212,000 across the market. Data Scientist roles pay a median of $190,000 across the market. Research Engineer roles pay a median of $252,000 across the market. Top-quartile AI compensation starts at $264,230.
Skills Booz Allen Hamilton Looks For
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
AI Role Categories
AI/ML Engineer
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Market compensation for AI/ML Engineer roles: $212,000 median across 11,857 positions with disclosed pay.
Data Scientist
Data Scientists extract insights and build predictive models from data. In the AI era, many roles now include LLM-powered analytics, automated reporting, and integration with generative AI tools. The role has evolved from 'the person who runs SQL queries' to 'the person who builds AI-powered data products.'
Python, SQL, and statistical modeling are the foundation. Increasingly, roles want experience with LLMs for data analysis, automated insight generation, and building AI-powered data products. Familiarity with cloud data platforms (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks) and ML frameworks (scikit-learn, PyTorch) covers most job requirements.
Market compensation for Data Scientist roles: $190,000 median across 1,406 positions with disclosed pay.
Research Engineer
Research Engineers bridge the gap between research and production. They implement papers, build experiment infrastructure, optimize training pipelines, and make research prototypes production-ready. They're the engineers who make research work at scale.
Strong software engineering fundamentals plus ML knowledge. Python, C++, and CUDA experience are common requirements. You'll need to read papers and turn ideas into working code. Distributed systems experience (especially distributed training) is highly valued. Performance optimization skills separate great candidates from good ones.
Market compensation for Research Engineer roles: $252,000 median across 419 positions with disclosed pay.
MLOps Engineer
MLOps Engineers build the infrastructure that keeps ML models running in production. They own CI/CD pipelines for model deployment, monitoring for data drift and model degradation, and the tooling that lets data scientists ship faster. If ML Engineers build the models, MLOps Engineers build the roads those models travel on.
Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud infrastructure are baseline. Most roles want experience with ML-specific tooling: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases, or similar. Strong DevOps fundamentals matter more than ML theory. You need to understand model serving (TorchServe, Triton, vLLM), monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi).
Market compensation for MLOps Engineer roles: $205,000 median across 151 positions with disclosed pay.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 9,653 open positions across 16 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (7,301), Data Scientist (441), AI Software Engineer (438). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (193) are outnumbered by mid-level (4,500) and senior (3,455) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 1,505 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 6% of all AI roles (568 positions), with 9,010 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $213,400. Top-quartile roles start at $264,230, and the 90th percentile reaches $319,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $253,100 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $141,440. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (1,605 postings), Aws (916 postings), Azure (724 postings), Rag (634 postings), Gcp (522 postings), Pytorch (495 postings), Kubernetes (384 postings), Claude (383 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 9,653 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 193 entry-level, 4,500 mid-level, 3,455 senior, and 1,505 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 6% of the market (568 positions). The remaining 9,010 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $213,400. Top-quartile compensation starts at $264,230. The 90th percentile reaches $319,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($253,100 median, 57 roles); Research Engineer ($252,000 median, 419 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($251,622 median, 51 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
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