Lead AI Solutions Systems Engineer

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Job Description:

Airbus Digitalis looking for a Lead AI Solutions Systems Engineer to join the team. This role can be based in Herndon, VA, Atlanta, GA, Sunnyvale, CA or Mobile, AL.

Meet the Team:

As a multinational company with a global footprint, our business needs protection from security threats and assurance that our end-users (employees, customers and suppliers) have access to the tools and data they need, when they need it. Our partners depend on us to be reliable and secure. Our information management professionals are highly motivated, dynamic and diverse - we value collaboration, teamwork, solidarity, helping each other, achieving results and always putting Airbus first.

Your Working Environment:

The Washington, D.C. metro area is home to multiple Airbus offices: In our nation’s capital you will find the Airbus Experience Center, a collection of interactive, multimedia exhibitions highlighting the extensive role the company plays in the aviation, aerospace and defense industries in the U.S. and around the world. The D.C. area is also home to our regional corporate headquarters – located adjacent to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) - it makes flying in a breeze!

The Lead AI Solutions Systems Engineer  is the lead technical architect and solution designer in the North America AI and Advanced analytics Product Service Line. This role will support the Head of digital AI and Advanced analytics to drive the technical strategy, data modeling, and high-level solution design from proof-of-concept (PoC) to industrialization. While the European program AgentAiR drives the end-to-end technology and harnessing framework (from platforms and patterns to change management), the North American node positions itself as the reference partner for business value qualification and delivery securitization.

As a Lead AI Solutions Systems Engineer, you will act as a deeply technical, hands-on, and business-facing lead architect and builder. You will serve as the principal technical interlocutor for business stakeholders on what AI can credibly do, how to translate business problems into mathematical and data specifications, how to architect the integration layers, and how to build and bring systems safely to production.

Your Challenges:

1) Technical Solution Strategy & Opportunity Framing: 40%

• Evaluate the technical feasibility, data readiness, and infrastructural viability of proposed AI initiatives.

• Act as the principal technical translator, formalizing complex business problems and translating them into rigorous mathematical, data engineering, and algorithmic requirements.

• Define and design technical validation metrics, including ML quality, precision, recall, system latency, data bias, drift, and LLM safety/alignment safeguards.

• Act as a trusted advisor to business leaders, helping them refine their goals and steer them toward highly viable, scalable AI architectures 

• Accompany the business throughout PoCs and their industrialization, from opportunity framing to production hand-over

2) High-Level Solution Architecture & Prototyping: 30%

• Shape the technical response: design solution blueprints, evaluate build-vs-buy trade-offs, and design staging plans.

• Collaborate with the AI Lead Developer to define local software development guidelines, API schemas, and MLOps release pipelines

• Lead and frame assistant/agent coding practices across the team and its delivery partners, ensuring robust engineering discipline.

• Act as an active, hands-on 'doer': rapidly prototype initial Proof of Concepts (PoCs), establish development sandboxes, and actively co-author code alongside delivery partners to accelerate industrialization 

3) Technology Evolution & Platform Governance: 30%

• Support the technical maturity ramp-up of the team, raising the engineering and algorithmic capabilities of team members.

• Actively anticipate, de-risk, and architect the late-2026 transition to Gemini Enterprise, designing the migration paths from custom-coded frameworks to robust no-code agentic structures.

• Coordinate technically with European technical teams (AgentAiR) to align local implementations with global enterprise architectures, API standards, and corporate data governance frameworks.

4) Additional Responsibilities: 10 % 

• Other duties as assigned

Your Boarding Pass:

• Required: Master's degree in AI (ML / Data Science), Computer Science, or a highly quantitative field.

• Preferred: Specialization in NLP (Natural Language Processing), Generative AI, or Agentic AI.

Experience:

Required:

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in advanced analytics initiatives, including mandatory hands-on, production-grade architecture and engineering experience in AI, and at least one Generative AI / Agentic AI system successfully designed, prototyped, and integrated into a production environment

• Significant experience across several business branches—Corporate (e.g., HR, Finance, Facilities) AND Operations (e.g., Procurement, Supply Chain, Logistics) at a minimum, with manufacturing experience highly preferred.

• Proven technical leadership in designing and delivering production-ready system architectures, with experience in database modeling and implementing microservices 

• Proven ability to shape both technical solutions and software architectures (frontend, backend, AI components).

• Robust experience in data modeling and/or data engineering, showing a deep understanding of business ontologies, physical data models, and modern data practices.

• Proven ability to frame complex business problems with non-technical stakeholders, translating complex business problems into clear, production-ready technical specifications and data requirements. 

• Experience working in an innovation cell or startup environment, combined with experience in a large, matrixed global enterprise.

Preferred

• Experience in agent coding, or in framing and supporting an assistant / agent coding practice.

Travel Required:

• 10%

Citizenship: Authorized to Work in the US

Knowledge, Skills, Demonstrated Capabilities:

Required:

• Technical & Scientific Rigor: Mastery of the mathematical, statistical, and algorithmic foundations of AI—from traditional ML to modern neural architectures—and the ability to translate this knowledge into reliable, production-ready system designs

• Software Engineering Blueprinting: Deep, practical expertise in software development lifecycles (SDLC), API contract design, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), regression testing, and deployment pipelines. If recent agentic delivery experience is limited, the candidate must demonstrate active monitoring of emerging agentic patterns, LLM Wiki, and equivalent reference bodies of knowledge.

• Value-Driven Mindset: Prioritizes real-world business outcomes and ROI over algorithmic sophistication.

• Open-Mindedness: Willingness to revisit established solutions when new, cheaper, or more efficient options emerge.

• Organizational Tolerance: Highly comfortable navigating complex, global corporate structures, data governance constraints, and dependencies tied to Europe-led solution deployments.

Preferred:

• Fluent in French is a plus

Communication Skills:

Required:

• Active Listening: Exceptional active listening capabilities, with highly didactic and illustrative communication skills to guide business teams toward shared understanding.

• Influence & Collaboration: Strong ability to defend a solution choice credibly with both business and technical stakeholders, build consensus, and bring teams along.

• Coaching & Delegation: Able to delegate responsibilities and actively coach junior/younger talents to build overall team capability.

Technical Systems Proficiency:

Required:

• Advanced Analytics & ML Platform: Strong working familiarity with SciKit and/or MLlib (PySpark) and as the reference platform for advanced analytics, ML pipelines, and operational data products. PyTorch, TensorFlow

• Generative & Agentic AI Stack: Python/Langgraph or ADK (Google Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI) is the strategic agentic platform), RAG (any embedding)

• Devops & Cloud: Streamlit / React frontends, PostgreSQL / Firebase / BigQuery for persistence and analytics, GCP Cloud Run (serverless containers) for APIs, Python as application Backend (Node/Typescript possible)

• AI-Assisted Coding Tools: Proficiency in assistant coding and agent coding across supported technologies (Gemini CLI, Claude Code, Codex)

Preferred:

• Working familiarity with Palantir Foundry / Skywise

• Hands-on experience optimizing LLM models using Vertex AI Studio on GCP 

• Experience in NLP and graph Knowledge: Named entities, Spacy, FlairNLP, LLM-Wiki / Hierarchical RAG, Neo4j, Spanner, GKG 

• Experience in supporting teams to migrate from Github Copilot to Gemini CLI

Physical Requirements: 

• Onsite: Hybrid (4 days in office/1 day remote)

• Vision: Daily able to see and read computer screen and other electronic equipment with screens, able to read documents, reports and engineering drawings. 

• Hearing: Daily able to hear to participate in conversations in person and via teleconference or phone and to hear sounds on production floor including safety warnings or alarms. 

• Speaking:  Daily able to speak in conversations and meetings, deliver information and participate in communications. 

• Equipment Operation: daily use of personal computer, telephone, copies, fax machine, and related office equipment and using electronic identification card to enter building floors.

• Carrying: Daily able to carry documents, tools, drawings, electronic equipment up to 10lbs.

• Sitting:  Daily able to sit for long periods of time in meetings, working on computer. 

• Standing: Daily able to stand for discussions in offices or on production floor. 

• Travel:  10%  of time able to travel independently and at short notice.

• Walking : Daily able to walk through office and production areas including uneven surfaces.

• Personal Protective Equipment required: Required PPE includes, but is not limited to, Safety Shoes, Safety Glasses, Hearing Protection, Respirators/Masks, and/or Protective Gloves as required by site and/or customer site

Equal Opportunity:

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, marital status, pregnancy, genetic information, or other legally protected status

As a leader in our field, Airbus provides relocation assistance for qualified positions and a comprehensive compensation and benefits package.   

As a matter of policy, Airbus does not sponsor visas for US positions unless specified. Only applicants with current work authorization will be considered.

Airbus does not offer tenured or guaranteed employment. Employment with Airbus is at will, meaning either the company or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice.

NOTE:  Airbus reserves the right to revise or change job duties and responsibilities as the need arises.  This position description does not constitute a written or implied contract of employment.

This job requires an awareness of any potential compliance risks and a commitment to act with integrity, as the foundation for the Company’s success, reputation and sustainable growth.

Company:

Airbus Americas, Inc.

Employment Type:

US - Direct Hire

Experience Level:

Professional

Remote Type:

Flexible

Job Family:

Digital <JF-IM-DI>

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Airbus provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetics, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status or other legally protected status. In addition to federal law requirements, Airbus complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, demotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, benefits and training. Airbus expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, genetics, pregnancy, marital status, veteran status or other legally protected status. As a matter of policy, Airbus does not sponsor visas for US positions unless specified. Only applicants with current work authorization will be considered. Airbus does not offer tenured or guaranteed employment. Employment with Airbus is at will, meaning either the company or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice. Airbus reserves the right to revise or change job duties and responsibilities as the need arises. This position description does not constitute a written or implied contract of employment.

By submitting your CV or application you are consenting to Airbus using and storing information about you for monitoring purposes relating to your application or future employment. This information will only be used by Airbus.
Airbus is committed to achieving workforce diversity and creating an inclusive working environment. We welcome all applications irrespective of social and cultural background, age, gender, disability, sexual orientation or religious belief.

Airbus is, and always has been, committed to equal opportunities for all. As such, we will never ask for any type of monetary exchange in the frame of a recruitment process. Any impersonation of Airbus to do so should be reported to [email protected].