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About This Role
##### About Peraton
Peraton is a next\-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees solve the most daunting challenges that our customers face. Visit peraton.com to learn how we’re keeping people around the world safe and secure.
##### About The Role
Peraton Labs is seeking a Senior AI Integration Developer to lead the design and implementation of an AI assistant capability within an existing web application in support of RF spectrum monitoring for the Department of Defense. This is a technically demanding role at the intersection of applied AI, software engineering, and operational tooling.
The core focus of this position is the development of a context\-aware AI assistant and the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and tooling infrastructure that connects it to the application’s data, workflows, and services. Given the sensitive nature of the operational environment, the primary deployment target is locally\-hosted models (e.g., Ollama) running in air\-gapped or connectivity\-constrained environments — with cloud\-based LLM APIs as a secondary consideration. The right candidate understands not just how to wire up a model, but how to design tool interfaces and select or tune models that perform reliably under these constraints. It is particularly important for the candidate to take the time to properly understand the application domain and CONOPs in order to develop appropriate MCP tool chains.
This individual will work closely with the broader engineering team and domain stakeholders to identify high\-value AI use cases, implement and iterate on MCP tools, and evaluate and improve the quality of AI\-generated outputs over time. Familiarity with the full stack is also expected, as effective AI integration requires understanding the existing system that the assistant will interact with. The core web application for this effort uses the following technologies in the stack: FastAPI backend, React frontend, and PostgreSQL database).
Key responsibilities may include:
- Design and implement MCP server and tool interfaces that expose application data and functionality to the AI assistant
- Deploy and configure locally\-hosted models (e.g., Ollama) for use in air\-gapped or connectivity\-constrained environments
- Evaluate and select local models appropriate for specific assistant tasks; assess capability and performance tradeoffs across model sizes and families
- Integrate LLM inference endpoints into the application backend and frontend, supporting both local and cloud\-hosted models where applicable
- Develop and refine system prompts, tool definitions, and context management strategies optimized for the capabilities and limitations of local models
- Define and execute evaluation frameworks to assess AI output quality, tool call accuracy, and assistant reliability
- Identify high\-value use cases in collaboration with domain experts and stakeholders; translate them into concrete AI tool designs
- Maintain and extend backend Python and TypeScript/Node.js services supporting AI functionality or work closely with other engineers to do so
- Document AI architecture, tool schemas, prompt strategies, model configurations, and evaluation results
- Stay current with the evolving local model and MCP ecosystem landscape
##### Qualifications
Required Qualifications:
- Minimum of 8 years of experience with a Bachelor's degree; 6 years with a Master's degree; or 3\+ years with a PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or similar/related programs.
- Experience deploying and working with locally\-hosted models (e.g., Ollama, llama.cpp, or similar) in offline or restricted network environments
- Strong understanding of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — server design, tool schemas, and client\-server communication
- Experience with prompt engineering and system prompt design, particularly tuning prompts for the capabilities of smaller or quantized local models
- Experience with agentic AI patterns — multi\-step reasoning, tool chaining, and error recovery
- Familiarity with model selection tradeoffs — capability, context length, quantization, and hardware requirements
- Ability to design structured evaluation approaches for AI output quality and tool performance
- Strong judgment about AI assistant UX — what makes a tool call well\-designed, when an AI response is actually useful, etc.
- Proficiency in Python; familiarity with FastAPI or comparable frameworks
- Experience with Docker and containerized service development
- Familiarity with TypeScript/Node.js for server\-side development
- Experience with React for implementing AI assistant or chat UI components
- Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, and automated testing infrastructure
- Clear communicator across technical and non\-technical audiences
- Must be a U.S. Citizen with ability to obtain/maintain a Secret clearance
- Candidate should be local and able to work within our Red Bank, NJ; Basking Ridge, NJ; or Silver Spring, MD locations
Desired Qualifications:
- Experience with LangChain, LangGraph, and FastMCP
- Experience with GPU hardware performance benchmarking on constrained edge\-deployed infrastructure
- Familiarity with performance evaluation including: tool selection accuracy, parameter extraction correctness, multi\-step reasoning success rates, response quality scoring, latency benchmarking, and regression testing across model versions
- Experience fine\-tuning or adapting open\-weight models for domain\-specific tasks
- Familiarity with RAG (retrieval\-augmented generation) architectures and vector databases in offline or on\-premise deployments
- Background in RF, spectrum management, spectrum sensing, software defined radios, propagation modeling, signal processing, or related DoD domains
- Cybersecurity awareness in the context of AI systems and DoD environments
- Experience with cloud\-hosted LLM APIs as a secondary deployment target
- Active Secret (or Higher) Clearance
##### Details
Target Salary Range: $112,000 \- $179,000\. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.
Benefits Statement: Peraton offers eligible employees a variety of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, health savings account, short/long term disability, EAP, parental leave, 401(k), paid time off (PTO) for vacation, and company paid holidays. A full listing of available benefits can be viewed at https://www.careers.peraton.com/benefits.
Application Statements: The application period for the job is estimated to be 30 days from the job posting date. However, this timeline may be shortened or extended depending on business needs and the availability of qualified candidates. By applying to this job, you are expressing interest in the role and the Company. During the review of your application, you may be required to participate in an on\-camera interview, as well as participate in a process to verify your identity.
EEO: Equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veterans, or other characteristics protected by law.
Salary Context
This $112K-$179K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →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 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At Peraton, 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 Required
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 $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($145K) sits 32% below the category median. Disclosed range: $112K to $179K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.
Peraton AI Hiring
Peraton has 10 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, Research Engineer, AI Software Engineer. Positions span Red Bank, NJ, US, Herndon, VA, US, Basking Ridge, NJ, US. Compensation range: $166K - $304K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 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 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 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 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). 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 (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) 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 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 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 $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. 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 $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. 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 (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 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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