[Hiring] AI Software Engineer @Second Front Systems

Role Description

Second Front Systems is looking for an ambitious, mission-focused, full-stack AI Software Engineer to strengthen our growing Research and Development organization building AI-native platform capabilities. Operating at the intersection of AI systems engineering and national security infrastructure, you will be responsible for designing, building, and shipping production agentic AI systems while establishing the cloud infrastructure and governance they operate within.

You will move from prototype to production across agent design, implementation, LLM integration, and cloud deployment, ensuring measurable output quality and user authorization at every stage, ensuring that Game Warden and downstream products integrate AI as foundational capability rather than feature. Your solutions will include evaluative rigor and organizational fluency.

We need someone capable of:

• Building and shipping agentic systems with LangGraph, LangChain, tool-calling, and multi-step orchestration.
• Operating cloud infrastructure (EKS, Terraform, Helm) and LLM gateway patterns across AWS Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Cohere, self-hosted models and provider-agnostic architectures.
• Defining and measuring agent quality through evaluation suites, then translating results into model selection and architecture decisions.

As a key partner to our Product and Engineering teams, you will advise on agent architecture and scope, model selection, implementation, and responsible AI governance. You will build documentation and reusable components that multiply organizational AI capability, serving as technical authority translating research-grade AI systems into mission-ready product.

Note: Candidates must reside in one of our approved hiring hubs:

• DC/Maryland/Virginia
• Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC
• Denver/Colorado Springs, CO
• Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

This is a full-time position.

Qualifications

• 2+ years full-time software, ML, or AI engineering experience with hands-on production work building and shipping LLM-based systems.
• Hands-on experience building agentic AI systems with tool-calling agents and multi-step orchestration using LangGraph, LangChain, or equivalent.
• Production experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation including vector stores, embedding models, chunking strategies, and retrieval quality optimization.
• Experience deploying containerized AI services to cloud environments using Docker, Kubernetes (EKS preferred), and infrastructure as code (Terraform preferred).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate AI concepts and recommendations to non-technical stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• U.S. citizenship and residence in approved hiring hub: DC/Maryland/Virginia, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill NC, Denver/Colorado Springs CO, or Dallas/Fort Worth TX.

Requirements

• Experience building MCP servers or clients, or integrating agents with enterprise tools and knowledge bases.
• Experience with AWS AI services such as Bedrock Knowledge Bases, AgentCore, and OpenSearch.
• Experience operating LLM gateways or serving infrastructure (e.g., LiteLLM, vLLM, GPU-backed self-hosted models), including single- and multi-tenant designs.
• Experience driving AI adoption across a product organization: not just building, but enabling others to use AI effectively.
• Experience working in or with the Department of Defense, federal agencies, or regulated environments, and familiarity with compliance frameworks such as NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, or NATO D32.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
• 401(k) with a 3% company contribution
• Comprehensive wellness benefits, including a One Medical membership, mental health resources, family planning support, and more
• Equity incentive plan
• New hire technology and home office stipend
• Annual professional development stipend
• Flexible paid time off, plus all federal holidays
• Generous parental leave
• Flexible remote work opportunities
• Employee referral bonus program