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Job Description:
DataRobot delivers AI that maximizes impact and minimizes business risk. Our platform and applications integrate into core business processes so teams can develop, deliver, and govern AI at scale. DataRobot empowers practitioners to deliver predictive and generative AI, and enables leaders to secure their AI assets. Organizations worldwide rely on DataRobot for AI that makes sense for their business — today and in the future.
Purpose \& Overall Relevance for the Organization:
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The Pre\-Sales AI Solutions Engineer for the Federal Sector plays a mission\-critical role in helping U.S. federal agencies adopt, scale, and derive value from DataRobot’s Predictive, Generative, and Agentic AI solutions. This role partners with Account Executives and Federal Strategic Account Directors to deliver compelling demonstrations, articulate the technical and mission impact of DataRobot solutions, and guide agencies through solution design, pilots, and proofs of value.
Operating in a complex and regulated environment, the Pre\-Sales AI Solutions Engineer ensures DataRobot solutions align with federal mission outcomes, compliance requirements, and security standards. This individual bridges the gap between business objectives, agency missions, and technical implementations—enabling federal customers to unlock the power of AI responsibly and securely.
Key Responsibilities:
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- Business\-to\-Technical Translation: Partner with federal sales teams to understand agency missions, strategic priorities, and technical constraints; map those to DataRobot capabilities, with tailored messaging for different federal personas (CIO, CTO, Chief Data Officer, mission program leads, technical practitioners).
- Demo Execution \& Federal Use Case Framing: Build and deliver engaging, outcome\-oriented demos for both new prospects and existing customers; help shape and refine use cases based on maturity, need, and strategic alignment.
- Solution Design \& Deployment Readiness: Define key technical requirements, recommend deployment models that meet FedRAMP, DoD IL, and agency\-specific security mandates, and advise on data readiness to ensure quick time\-to\-value for new and expansion opportunities.
- Compliance \& Security Alignment: Support conversations around AI governance, data security, model transparency, and responsible AI practices in alignment with federal regulations and standards.
- Cross\-Functional Feedback Loop: Provide structured feedback on federal\-specific needs, procurement hurdles, and technical blockers to Product, Marketing, and Enablement teams—ensuring DataRobot’s offerings remain relevant in the federal market.
- Sales Collaboration: Act as a trusted advisor across the sales team by supporting Account Executives, Strategic Account Directors, and Business Development Reps with the technical knowledge and assets that advance federal AI adoption.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
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- Strong ability to translate GenAI and ML platform capabilities into mission outcomes across federal civilian, defense, and intelligence agencies.
- Demonstrated success supporting federal sales pursuits (new logos and account expansion) with technical expertise and solution design.
- Excellent communication and demo skills; proven ability to present complex AI concepts in a clear, value\-driven manner to both mission leaders and technical stakeholders.
- Understanding of federal compliance and security frameworks (e.g., FedRAMP, NIST 800\-53, DoD IL, FISMA).
- Comfort working in a fast\-paced environment with evolving product offerings and shifting federal priorities.
Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:
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- 6\+ years of experience in sales engineering, solution engineering, or technical consulting within AI software/SaaS space, with at least 2\+ years supporting U.S. federal government customers.
- Bachelor’s degree in a technical, analytical, or business\-related field (or equivalent experience); advanced degree in a technical or analytical\-related field a plus
- Experience supporting AI/ML or advanced analytics sales into federal agencies is a strong plus.
- Active Secret / Top Secret clearance required
- Strong preference for candidates located in Washington, D.C. Metro Area.
- Ability to travel up to 25% in average to customer meetings, workshops, industry conferences, and events.
The talent and dedication of our employees are at the core of DataRobot’s journey to be an iconic company. We strive to attract and retain the best talent by providing competitive pay and benefits with our employees’ well\-being at the core. Here’s what your benefits package may include depending on your location and local legal requirements: Medical, Dental \& Vision Insurance, Flexible Time Off Program, Paid Holidays, Paid Parental Leave, Global Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and more!
DataRobot Operating Principles:
- Wow Our Customers
- Set High Standards
- Be Better Than Yesterday
- Be Rigorous
- Assume Positive Intent
- Have the Tough Conversations
- Be Better Together
- Debate, Decide, Commit
- Deliver Results
- Overcommunicate
All DataRobot hires are required to complete a background check prior to starting employment, which includes identity verification, criminal history check, employment verification and education verification. Additionally, all DataRobot employees must be available to attend in\-person company trainings and meetings.
Research shows that many women only apply to jobs when they meet 100% of the qualifications while many men apply to jobs when they meet 60%. At DataRobot we encourage ALL candidates, especially women, people of color, LGBTQ\+ identifying people, differently abled, and other people from marginalized groups to apply to our jobs, even if you do not check every box. We’d love to have a conversation with you and see if you might be a great fit.
DataRobot is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. DataRobot is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. Please see the United States Department of Labor’s EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.
All applicant data submitted is handled in accordance with our Applicant Privacy Policy.
Role Details
About This Role
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.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 3,823 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 69% of the market. At DataRobot, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
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 the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
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.
Skills in Demand for This Role
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.
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.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $181,170 based on 12,692 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,100. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,500. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($275,000) and AI Safety ($274,200). By seniority level: Entry: $97,880; Mid: $165,000; Senior: $227,400; Director: $247,800; VP: $250,000.
DataRobot AI Hiring
DataRobot has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Washington, DC, US, Remote, US.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (590 positions) offer remote work, while 3,217 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,643 roles, $211,000 median); San Francisco (2,168 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,792 roles, $191,580 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
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.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 3,823 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 112 entry-level, 1,798 mid-level, 1,516 senior, and 397 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (590 positions). The remaining 3,217 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $200,100. Top-quartile compensation starts at $253,500. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($275,000 median, 41 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 55 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 434 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.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 3,823 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,629), Data Scientist (322), AI Software Engineer (279). 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 (112) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,798) and senior (1,516) 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 397 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (590 positions), with 3,217 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 $200,100. Top-quartile roles start at $253,500, and the 90th percentile reaches $307,500. 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 Engineering Manager roles lead at $275,000 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $140,000. 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 (1,979 postings), Aws (1,190 postings), Azure (899 postings), Rag (839 postings), Gcp (726 postings), Pytorch (595 postings), Prompt Engineering (595 postings), Claude (540 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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