Senior Agentic AI Technical Lead

Requisition #: 1393
Location: McLean, VA

Clearance and eligibility

• Active Secret clearance required (TS/SCI eligible preferred)
• U.S. Citizenship required
• Ability to work within DoD IL5+ environments (e.g., Azure IL5, Google GovCloud), including support for expedited credentialing/facility clearance processes

Role summary

We are seeking a Senior Technical Lead to serve as the Technical Lead and Delivery Manager for a high-impact Agentic AI Prototype program with the Chief Digital and AI Office (CDAO). This essential role will function as the most senior full-stack engineer and architect on the agreement, translating Government-defined mission outcomes into secure, production-ready AI agent capabilities delivered within DoD IL5+ cloud environments. You will lead internal implementation, coordinate multiple non-traditional subcontractor teams, partner closely with the Government Product Owner, and be accountable for delivering accepted, operationally useful capabilities against fixed-price milestones.

Key responsibilities

Technical leadership and architecture

• Translate mission outcomes and prioritized product backlog items into technical architecture, delivery plans, and sprint goals
• Serve as the essential senior engineer/architect and primary technical authority for agentic AI solutions, from prompt engineering to complex multi-agent workflows with tool use and logical branching
• Own end-to-end system design across secure cloud environments (Azure IL5, Google GovCloud), model inference services (Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock), and frontier AI SDKs (Gemini Enterprise, Anthropic for Gov, Grok Enterprise)
• Lead development and integration of secure APIs, data pipelines (structured/unstructured), RAG/embeddings, and metadata catalog/platform (MCP) capabilities
• Ensure all solutions are architected to be ATO-ready meeting technical, administrative, and security controls required for production authorization

Delivery management and agile execution

• Act as the single accountable interface to the Government Product Owner for technical, delivery, and performance matters
• Develop and deliver the Technical Management Plan (TMP) covering agile process, sprint cadence, staffing, and security adherence
• Lead agile ceremonies, maintain velocity, and drive acceptance against fixed-price milestones
• Direct up to five agile Implementation Teams (one internal team and up to four subcontractor teams)

Secure cloud development and compliance

• Ensure development occurs exclusively in designated secure environments, leveraging CSP-native services and compliant model inference
• Implement DevSecOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, observability, and security controls aligned to DoD SRG IL5, FedRAMP High, and RMF principles
• Drive ATO-ready deliverables, documentation, and security artifacts

Required qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years in technical leadership roles delivering production AI systems in secure or regulated environments
• Proven track record designing, building, and fielding agentic AI systems including: agent frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph) and multi-agent orchestration; advanced prompt engineering, system prompts, and agent persona libraries; tool use/function calling, logical branching, and state management
• Strong cloud expertise in IL5+ environments: Azure IL5 and/or Google GovCloud; Kubernetes/containers; serverless; VNET/governance; Key Vault/Secrets; identity and access control
• Model inference platforms: Google Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock; SDK integration with Gemini Enterprise, Anthropic for Gov, and Grok Enterprise
• Data engineering and integration: secure API integrations and data ingestion pipelines (ETL/ELT) for structured/unstructured sources; RAG pipelines, embeddings, and vector databases (e.g., pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate); metadata catalogs/platforms (MCP) and search APIs (e.g., DataHub, OpenMetadata, Custom MCP)
• DevSecOps and compliance: CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and secure software supply chain (SBOM, signing); familiarity with DoD SRG IL5, FedRAMP High, RMF, and ATO-ready standards
• Programming and tooling: Expert-level Python and TypeScript/JavaScript; REST/gRPC; OpenAPI; microservices; eventing/queues (Kafka/SQS); relational and NoSQL databases

Preferred qualifications

• Prior experience delivering AI capabilities for DoD or IC missions within IL5/IL6 enclaves
• Hands-on experience with Azure OpenAI Service in Gov environments; Anthropic Gov offerings and enterprise agentic development platforms
• Background in cybersecurity engineering or cloud security architecture; experience with Zero Trust patterns in DoD environments
• Experience with red teaming, model evaluation, and AI safety testing for mission-critical workflows

About Agile Defense: At Agile Defense we know that action defines the outcome and new challenges require new solutions. Our vision is to bring adaptive innovation to support our nation's most important missions through the seamless integration of advanced technologies, elite minds, and unparalleled agility.