B

Booz Allen

Builds AI and cyber systems for the US government

AI Engineer

Full-TimeDeadline 11/11/26
$99k - $225k/yr
Mid
Bachelor's
Washington, DC, USA+1 moreMore locations: McLean, VA, USA
In Person
Software EngineeringAI Application Engineering
No H1B Sponsorship
US Top Secret Clearance Required

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 3 years of experience building production systems, including artificial intelligence or machine learning applications.
  • Experience building large language model systems using retrieval-augmented generation frameworks such as LangChain and LlamaIndex, or custom pipelines and vector stores.
  • Experience designing embedding pipelines involving document ingestion, chunking strategies, indexing, metadata filtering, retrieval optimization, and hybrid search.
  • Experience designing application programming interfaces and services using FastAPI, Flask, or Node.js.
  • Experience with cloud-native architectures and AWS services including Bedrock, SageMaker, EKS or ECS, S3, IAM, Lambda, CloudWatch, and Secrets Manager.
  • Experience with agent frameworks and orchestration patterns such as LangGraph, tool calling, and function-calling APIs.
  • Experience implementing observability through logging and tracing with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or CloudWatch.
  • Experience building metrics pipelines that track latency, throughput, token usage, cache hit rate, and error rates.
  • Experience optimizing performance using caching layers such as Redis, parallelization or asynchronous workflows, and chunking and retrieval tuning.
  • Experience designing automated evaluation pipelines using benchmark datasets, large-language-model-as-a-judge techniques, regression testing, and human evaluation workflows.
  • Experience supporting production AI services, including deployment, monitoring, incident response, debugging, and performance tuning.
  • Experience managing prompt templates, prompt versioning, model configurations, and structured outputs across development and production environments.
  • Knowledge of AI security concepts including prompt injection, jailbreak resistance, data leakage prevention, guardrails, secure prompt design, and responsible AI practices.
  • Ability to obtain a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance.
  • A bachelor's degree.
Responsibilities
  • Design and deliver production-grade artificial intelligence systems.
  • Own retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, evaluation systems, and performance optimization.
  • Build scalable, observable, and efficient AI services using modern AI infrastructure and tooling.
  • Support the full AI application lifecycle, from enterprise data ingestion and retrieval through prompt engineering, evaluation, deployment, observability, and production operations.
  • Build secure and scalable AI solutions for mission-critical federal environments.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience supporting Department of Defense clients or other federal mission environments.
  • Experience with high-performance inference systems such as vLLM, Ray Serve, or Triton Inference Server.
  • Experience with semantic caching and embedding reuse strategies.
  • Experience with guardrail frameworks such as Rebuff, Guardrails.ai, or custom filtering systems.
  • Experience integrating AI applications with enterprise data platforms and knowledge repositories such as Databricks, Snowflake, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL, SharePoint, Confluence, or S3-based document stores.
  • Experience deploying AI workloads into AWS GovCloud, IL4 or IL5 environments, or other secure cloud environments.
  • Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging technologies such as Amazon SQS, Kafka, RabbitMQ, or Amazon EventBridge.
  • Experience with Model Context Protocol or modern AI agent interoperability standards.

About the company

Booz Allen builds and runs technology for the U.S. government, mostly for the military and intelligence agencies, and its engineers work alongside consultants who know each agency's mission. In 1958, it helped the U.S. Navy create PERT, a project-scheduling method first used on the Polaris submarine missile program and later adopted across government and industry. Its teams design cyber defenses, AI and data tools, and battlefield communications, and it sells its own products, such as Vellox, a suite of AI tools that spot and fight off hackers. Agencies pay mainly through multi-year contracts that reimburse costs, bill hours, or set a fixed price. Booz Allen was founded in 1914 and is based in McLean, Virginia.

Company Size

10,001+

Company Stage

IPO

Headquarters

New York City, New York

Founded

1914

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Product work is growing: Booz Allen bought Ultra's battlefield encryption and computing unit for $720 million in August 2026.
  • Hiring continues despite cuts: Booz Allen listed 2,282 open roles in October 2026, 1,097 of them in technology.
  • Work is lined up for years: backlog, including contract options, hit $39.5 billion in June 2026, about 3.5 years' revenue.

What critics are saying

  • Job security has slipped: staff fell from 33,400 to 30,900 in the year to June 2026 as civil work shrank.
  • Stock grants lost value: shares fell 29% in the year to October 2026 while defense IT rival CACI rose 14%.
  • Shutdowns halt paid work: the federal shutdown that began October 2025 cost Booz Allen about $50 million in unperformed work.

What makes Booz Allen unique

  • Most coworkers are cleared for secrets: about 77% of Booz Allen's 31,500 employees held security clearances in March 2026.
  • AI is its specialty: Booz Allen calls itself the federal government's largest AI provider, with about 400 active AI projects.
  • It bankrolls defense tech startups: Booz Allen tripled its venture fund to $300 million in July 2025, backing 17 companies.

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Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Life Insurance
  • Disability Insurance
  • 401(k) Retirement Plan
  • Paid Vacation
  • Professional Development Budget
  • Remote Work Options
  • Flexible Work Hours

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

0%

2 year growth

0%
Yahoo Finance
Oct 26th, 2026
Booz Allen jumps 7% as TD Cowen upgrades to Buy, lifting price target to $95

Booz Allen Hamilton shares rose 7% after TD Cowen upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold and raised its price target to $95 from $77. The analyst cited improving funded backlog. In the quarter ended September 30, funded backlog rose 5% to $5.7 billion, while revenue fell 3.9% to $2.8 billion. Civil revenue dropped 15%, but adjusted EPS rose 18% to $1.76. The company raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $6.50–$6.70 from $6.00–$6.35. Citi lifted its target to $88 from $77, and UBS to $86 from $79; both kept Neutral ratings. BofA cut its target to $68 and kept an Underperform rating.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Oct 26th, 2026
EDGAR Filing Documents for 0001898825-21-000001

EIN.: 873450074 | State of Incorp.: DE | Fiscal Year End: 1231Type: D | Act: 33 | File No.: 021-424755 | Film No.: 211488861

Yahoo Finance
Oct 25th, 2026
Booz Allen shifts to fixed-price contracts as national security pipeline jumps 20%

Booz Allen Hamilton said it remains on track to meet its full-year expectations while it speeds up investment in cyber and defence technology. The company announced this on its October 23, 2026 earnings call for the second quarter of fiscal 2027, which ended September 30. It is shifting towards fixed price contracts and proprietary products to widen margins and separate revenue growth from headcount. In national security, the fixed price mix has risen by three percentage points this year, and the firm added more than 300 employees there this quarter. The qualified national security pipeline grew more than 20% year on year. The civil business fell 15%, slightly better than guidance, as contract awards faced delays.

PR Newswire
Oct 9th, 2026
PDW integrates Booz Allen mission autonomy software on AM drones with secure fleet updates

Performance Drone Works announced it is integrating Booz Allen's mission autonomy software, powered by Shield AI's Hivemind, onto its AM drones. The software enables autonomy-assisted missions whilst operators retain decision-making authority. PDW is also deploying Booz Allen's secure over-the-air fleet update system across its aircraft portfolio. The combined product entered testing on 30 September and is planned for general availability in Q1 2027. PDW aims to extend the autonomy software to its C100 aircraft later in 2027. The integration supports PDW's strategy to rapidly field and adapt systems. The company's Huntsville facility has annual production capacity of 100,000 drones. Booz Allen's update system is designed to reduce approved update cycles from weeks to hours, even in contested environments.

Tectonic
Oct 5th, 2026
Aventra raises $17.5M for high-altitude balloon-dropped glide bombs

Virginia-based startup Aventra has raised $17.5 million in new funding, with Konvoy Ventures leading the round. Seed round backer Lavrock Ventures participated alongside new investors Booz Allen Ventures, Sands Capital, Langford Industries, and Western Alliance Bank. The company manufactures Piranha, a high-altitude balloon-dropped glide bomb that converts unguided munitions into precision-guided weapons. Since emerging from stealth with a $3.5 million seed round last October, Aventra has delivered over 400 units to US and NATO customers and doubled its production revenue. The system launches munitions from 60,000 feet and can glide approximately 100 miles, with recent demonstrations achieving accuracy within three metres of targets. Aventra plans to use the funding to scale production from 35 units monthly to 500 through a new Virginia facility called Factory Zero.