Data & ML Engineer

About Our ClientThe organization is an incubation firm focused on building and investing in rapidly scalable, technology-led companies across healthcare, cybersecurity, and national security sectors. It develops technology solutions aimed at addressing critical national challenges.One of its initiatives, DEFCON AI, specializes in applying artificial intelligence, mathematical optimization, data analytics, and software engineering to optimize complex systems with resilience to disruption. DEFCON AI’s technology helps align outcomes with operational goals, improve decision-making, and enable customers to anticipate and mitigate the impact of disruptions.About the OpportunityThe Data & ML Engineer role involves developing the data and model components of an AI-enabled decision-support system operating within an accredited environment.The position focuses on data ingestion, record resolution against a shared model, relevance scoring, and generating actionable, explainable outputs. This role addresses the challenge of working with low-signal data where accuracy must be meaningful for critical cases while ensuring all outputs are traceable to their original sources.The engineer will enhance capabilities including record matching, calibrated scoring, and grounded generation using modern tools and AI-assisted development. The position is fully remote with occasional travel.ResponsibilitiesDesign and maintain a graph of entities, records, and typed relationshipsImplement probabilistic matching, including blocking, candidate generation, pairwise scoring, clustering, and threshold policiesBuild deduplication and suppression processes for known recordsEstablish data provenance by linking nodes and edges to original sourcesDocument interface and data-flow designs for engineering referenceDevelop relevance and priority models over large, imperfect datasetsOwn calibration and threshold design, defining meaningful interpretations of scores beyond simple rankingDesign abstention policies for uncertain or high-risk casesPerform feature engineering, establish baselines, and conduct cost-sensitive error analysisImplement embeddings, vector storage, and retrieval with provenance trackingIntegrate language models through managed services while maintaining self-hosted alternativesDesign prompts and output schemas while binding generated content to source recordsManage model packaging, serving, versioning, and rollback processesBuild secure ingestion, transformation, validation, and publishing pipelines for diverse data sourcesImplement quality checks, schema validation, lineage capture, and audit loggingDetect source drift and surface data degradationGenerate synthetic data to support development before live data accessAdhere to data modeling standards approved by the Data LeadDocument assumptions, transformation logic, and system limitationsInstrument telemetry for automated measurementMaintain audit trails covering recommendations, overrides, and model versionsSubmit changes through a gated release processRequirementsMinimum of 5 years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, applied machine learning, ML engineering, production analytics engineering, or a related fieldProficiency in Python and SQL, with experience handling large and imperfect operational datasetsExperience delivering systems designed for sustained operational useRoutine use of AI-assisted development with sound judgment regarding appropriate applicationsAbility to explain technical decisions clearly to non-technical stakeholders who may need to defend or communicate those decisionsU.S. citizenshipActive U.S. Secret clearance with eligibility to work in controlled government cloud environmentsPay Range and Compensation PackageCompensation will be determined based on the candidate’s experience, skills, qualifications, and other relevant factorsEqual Opportunity Statement: Our client is an equal opportunity employer. They celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or national origin.Note:RemoteHunter is not the Employer of Record (EOR) for this role. Our purpose in this opportunity is to connect exceptional candidates with leading employers. We help job seekers worldwide discover roles that match their goals and guide them to complete their full application directly through the hiring company’s career page or ATS.