Senior AI Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer

Credence · McLean, United States · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-07

Salary: USD 115,000–155,000

Workplace: on_site

Department: DOW AI/Tech

Description

Overview

Join a team where innovation meets mission. Our AI, cloud, cyber, and modernization solutions save agencies thousands of hours, safeguard national security, and strengthen health and humanitarian missions worldwide. With 1,700+ team members, 1,500+ AI/data experts, and 100+ prime contracts, we deliver at scale and with purpose.

We’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace by the Washington Post for six straight years and named to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies 13 of the past 14 years. Credence is a welcoming home for those looking to grow and contribute to positive change. We encourage all employees to expand beyond their boundaries, dive into important world-changing Federal challenges.

Position Summary

Credence has an immediate need for a Senior AI Data Engineer to join our growing AI and Automation practice. You will be a technical anchor in our AI and Automation practice. You’ll apply advanced AI and data engineering expertise to design, build, and deploy data-driven solutions. You’ll drive agentic AI development lifecycles and collaborate across engineering, data, and stakeholder teams to deliver high-impact, cloud-native AI capabilities that advance federal missions.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the duties listed below

• Data Integrations 
  Build and optimize data pipelines that prepare, clean, and structure data.
• Data Lake & Warehouse Engineering 
  Manage and organize large datasets across cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) using data lake and warehouse technologies. Implement medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold layers) to ensure data quality, lineage, and accessibility.
• Database Management & Performance
  Work with both SQL and NoSQL systems to model, query, and load large-scale datasets. Monitor, tune, and maintain high-performance data stores supporting analytics and reporting.
• Collaborative Engineering
  Work alongside data engineers, software engineers, and data scientists to develop operational agentic AI systems.
• Cloud Enablement
  Help automate model deployment workflows using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, and container orchestration tools.
• Production Monitoring & Optimization
  Monitor AI systems post-deployment, perform performance tuning, and apply best practices for reliability and scalability.
• Technical Rigor & Documentation
  Write clean, well-documented code following industry and federal guidelines, support reproducible development.
• Professional Growth
  Stay current on AI/ML trends and tools and actively learn from senior team members through mentorship and technical design reviews.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Data/AI/ML, or a related field.
• 7+ years of hands-on experience delivering Data/AI/ML solutions.
• Strong understanding of ETL, ELT, and other similar data pipeline processes, as well as Enterprise Data and Storage Systems, such as experience with OpenSearch/Elastic Search, Kafka, Bedrock, Glue, DataBricks, Snowflake, AWS S3, RDS, EBS, or Glacier
• Experience with vector databases, embeddings, and their affiliated data structures, file formats, services, APIs, etc (e.g. FAISS, PGVector, OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, Hugging face with Pinecone, Bedrock Knowledge Base.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (GitLab/GitHub/Jenkins)
• Experience with VS Code and AI extensions such as Cline and Claude Code.
• Strong communication skills and client-oriented mindset.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States and meet the eligibility requirements for a Public Trust clearance.

Preferred

• Curious and experimental about the latest innovations in AI with an orientation toward the relentless pursuit of delivering mission impact.
• Python proficiency and familiarity with libraries and frameworks (Pyspark, Pandas, uv, Pydantic, FastAPI, CrewAI, LangChain, LangGraph, Unstructured).
• Experience with IaC tools such as Terraform, Open Tofu, AWS CDK, or CloudFormation to deploy cloud native applications.
• Experience with agentic frameworks such as Agent2Agent Protocol, AWS Bedrock Agents, Mastra, CrewAI, Strands, or AgentCore.
• Exposure to adjacent skillsets such as data science, UI/UX, cloud engineering, and platform engineering to understand the entire software ecosystem.
• Knowledge of federal cybersecurity, RMF, FedRAMP, or regulatory frameworks.

Why This Role Matters

• Real-World Impact — Your work will support defense and health agencies where AI solutions directly contribute to national security and public well-being.
• Growth-Oriented Environment — Learn from technical leaders, innovate within Agentic AI, and mentor those around you in AI best practices.
• Culture of Empowerment — You’ll be part of a team that values innovation, trust, collaboration, and mission success.

Salary Range: $150,000 - $180,000 annually. Actual compensation will be determined based on the selected candidate's experience, education, certifications, skills, and overall qualifications.

Benefits

• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Training & Development
• Wellness Resources

Apply

Apply at Credence

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