Principal AI ML Software Developer (Onsite)

$107K - $204K Richardson, TX, US Senior AI/ML Engineer

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Skills & Technologies

DockerKubernetesLangchainPrompt EngineeringPython

About This Role

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Date Posted:

2026\-04\-16Country:

United States of AmericaLocation:

US\-TX\-RICHARDSON\-C17 \~ 1717 Cityline Dr \~ CITYLINE C17Position Role Type:

OnsiteU.S. Citizen, U.S. Person, or Immigration Status Requirements:

The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearanceSecurity Clearance Type:

TS/SCI without PolygraphSecurity Clearance Status:

Active and existing security clearance required after day 1

At RTX, the world largest aerospace and defense company, 185,000 great minds are united by purpose and inspired to make a difference solving the world’s most complex problems. With our three market leading businesses, world\-class operations and investments in research and development, we offer capabilities and opportunity no one else can. Together, we push the boundaries of known science and find new ways to connect and protect our world.

Raytheon brings the strength of more than 100 years of experience and renowned engineering expertise to meet the needs of today’s mission and stay ahead of tomorrow’s threat. We deliver solutions that help our nation and allies defend freedoms and deter aggression, creating a safer, more secure world. Join us and help shape the future of aerospace and defense.

This role leads the development of AI‑powered software engineering tools by building and orchestrating advanced SDLC agents that improve coding, testing, and CI/CD workflows. It requires strong Python skills and hands‑on experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, secure system design, and modern DevOps technologies to deliver scalable, secure AI solutions.

What You Will Do

  • Develop a suite of SDLC agents, each specialized for tasks like requirements analysis, code generation, debugging, and automated testing.
  • Implement Zero Trust Security principles across the agentic ecosystem.
  • Design and build a robust, scalable agentic orchestrator to manage and coordinate multiple AI agents.
  • Develop and integrate Model Context Protocol (MCP) into SDLC agents, allowing agents to use tools.
  • Craft and refine sophisticated prompts to guide agent behavior and ensure high\-quality, reliable outputs from Large Language Models (LLMs).
  • Implement Agent\-to\-Agent (A2A) communication protocols, enabling seamless collaboration and information sharing between agents.
  • Implement API\-driven GenAI tools to enhance the CICD Pipeline
  • Collaborate with product and engineering teams to integrate the agentic system into our existing development workflows.
  • Write clean, efficient, and well\-documented code while following best practices for building AI\-driven systems.

Qualifications You Must Have

  • Typically requires a degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM), and a minimum of 8 years of Software Engineering experience.
  • Experience as a Software Developer, specifically with Python.
  • Experience with LLMs and popular AI frameworks (e.g., poolside, LangChain).
  • Experience in prompt engineering, including techniques for complex reasoning, planning, and tool use.
  • Experience working on a generative AI Agent and/or open\-source related project.
  • The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued TS/SCI clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.

Qualifications We Prefer

  • A degree in Computer Science and/or Computer Engineering.
  • Practical experience applying Zero Trust Security principles.
  • Experience with platform development and DevOps tools, including containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
  • Experience with the Atlassian suite (JIRA, Confluence, etc.)
  • Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation.
  • Experience with UI design is preferred
  • Knowledge of distributed systems, process management, and workflow orchestration.
  • A conceptual understanding of advanced agentic concepts like A2A communication and multi\-agent consensus.
  • Experience designing and evaluating software architectures for scalable, secure AI\-driven systems

What We Offer

  • Whether you’re just starting out on your career journey or are an experienced professional, we offer a total rewards package that goes above and beyond with compensation; healthcare, wellness, retirement, and work/life benefits; career development and recognition programs. Some of the benefits we offer include parental (including paternal) leave, flexible work schedules, achievement awards, educational assistance, and child/adult backup care.
  • Relocation Eligibility \- Relocation assistance is available.

Learn More \& Apply Now!

  • Please consider the following role type definition as you apply for this role. Onsite: Employees who are working in Onsite roles will work primarily onsite. This includes all production and maintenance employees, as they are essential to the development of our products.
  • This position requires a security clearance. DCSA Consolidated Adjudication Services (DCSA), an agency of the Department of Defense, handles and adjudicates the security clearance process. More information about Security Clearances can be found on the US Department of State government website here: https://www.state.gov/m/ds/clearances/c10978\.htm
  • North Texas: https://careers.rtx.com/global/en/raytheon\-north\-texas\-location
  • We Are RTX

\#LI\-Onsite

\#LI\-HS30

*As part of our commitment to maintaining a secure hiring process, candidates may be asked to attend select steps of the interview process in\-person at one of our office locations, regardless of whether the role is designated as on\-site, hybrid or remote.*

The salary range for this role is 107,500 USD \- 204,500 USD. The salary range provided is a good faith estimate representative of all experience levels. RTX considers several factors when extending an offer, including but not limited to, the role, function and associated responsibilities, a candidate’s work experience, location, education/training, and key skills.

Hired applicants may be eligible for benefits, including but not limited to, medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short\-term disability, long\-term disability, 401(k) match, flexible spending accounts, flexible work schedules, employee assistance program, Employee Scholar Program, parental leave, paid time off, and holidays. Specific benefits are dependent upon the specific business unit as well as whether or not the position is covered by a collective\-bargaining agreement.

Hired applicants may be eligible for annual short\-term and/or long\-term incentive compensation programs depending on the level of the position and whether or not it is covered by a collective\-bargaining agreement. Payments under these annual programs are not guaranteed and are dependent upon a variety of factors including, but not limited to, individual performance, business unit performance, and/or the company’s performance.

This role is a U.S.\-based role. If the successful candidate resides in a U.S. territory, the appropriate pay structure and benefits will apply.

RTX anticipates the application window closing approximately 40 days from the date the notice was posted. However, factors such as candidate flow and business necessity may require RTX to shorten or extend the application window.*RTX is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or veteran status, or any other applicable state or federal protected class. RTX provides affirmative action in employment for qualified Individuals with a Disability and Protected Veterans in compliance with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act.*

Privacy Policy and Terms:

Salary Context

This $107K-$204K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $180K across 2130 roles with salary data).

View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →

Role Details

Company Raytheon
Title Principal AI ML Software Developer (Onsite)
Location Richardson, TX, US
Category AI/ML Engineer
Experience Senior
Salary $107K - $204K
Remote No

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 4,133 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 69% of the market. At Raytheon, 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

Docker (11% of roles) Kubernetes (13% of roles) Langchain (11% of roles) Prompt Engineering (15% of roles) Python (51% of roles)

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 $185,000 based on 13,200 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($156K) sits 16% below the category median. Disclosed range: $107K to $204K.

Across all AI roles, the market median is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($274,200) and AI Engineering Manager ($268,700). By seniority level: Entry: $97,760; Mid: $165,778; Senior: $227,400; Director: $250,000; VP: $250,000.

Raytheon AI Hiring

Raytheon has 3 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer. Positions span Richardson, TX, US, East Hartford, CT, US, Andover, MA, US. Compensation range: $165K - $204K.

Location Context

Across all AI roles, 14% (583 positions) offer remote work, while 3,532 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (2,760 roles, $211,000 median); San Francisco (2,258 roles, $253,000 median); Los Angeles (1,841 roles, $195,000 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 4,133 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 106 entry-level, 1,901 mid-level, 1,663 senior, and 463 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 14% of the market (583 positions). The remaining 3,532 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.

The market median for AI roles is $200,700. Top-quartile compensation starts at $254,000. The 90th percentile reaches $307,500. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($274,200 median, 57 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($268,700 median, 42 roles); Research Engineer ($260,000 median, 442 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 4,133 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (2,865), Data Scientist (339), AI Software Engineer (313). 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 (106) are outnumbered by mid-level (1,901) and senior (1,663) 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 463 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.

Remote work availability sits at 14% of all AI roles (583 positions), with 3,532 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 $200,700. Top-quartile roles start at $254,000, 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 Safety roles lead at $274,200 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 (2,128 postings), Aws (1,324 postings), Azure (1,003 postings), Rag (916 postings), Gcp (817 postings), Pytorch (655 postings), Prompt Engineering (639 postings), Claude (571 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

Based on 13,200 roles with disclosed compensation, the median salary for AI/ML Engineer positions is $185,000. Actual compensation varies by seniority, location, and company stage.
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.
About 14% of the 4,133 AI roles we track offer remote work. Remote availability varies by company and seniority level, with senior and leadership roles more likely to offer location flexibility.
Raytheon is among the companies actively hiring for AI and ML talent. Check our company profiles for detailed breakdowns of open roles, salary ranges, and hiring trends.
Common next steps from AI/ML Engineer positions include ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer. Progression depends on whether you lean toward technical depth, people management, or product strategy.

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