Rackner - Senior Technical Lead — R&D Mission Solutions

• U.S. citizenship due to federal contract requirements. • Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance. • Strong hands-on software development experience, particularly with Python. • Experience developing backend applications, services, APIs, or data-driven software. • Experience building, integrating, or supporting AI/ML or generative AI applications. • Understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including application design, testing, debugging, version control, and code review. • Experience working with APIs, JSON, databases, and structured or semi-structured data. • Ability to take a technical problem from concept through implementation and demonstration. • Experience working in fast-moving environments where requirements may not be fully defined at the beginning. • Ability to independently investigate technical problems, evaluate options, and build practical solutions. • Strong communication and collaboration skills with engineers, technical leaders, and non-engineering stakeholders. • Willingness to travel approximately 15% for R&D events, demos, testing, and collaboration sessions. • Active Secret clearance or higher. • Experience supporting DoD, Air Force, Space Force, mission command, battle management, C2, ISR, mission planning, autonomy, or other national security programs. • Experience developing applications using LLMs, generative AI, agentic AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, vector databases, or model APIs. • Experience evaluating model outputs, accuracy, reliability, latency, and other AI performance considerations. • Experience with AI/ML frameworks or libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face, LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar technologies. • Experience with REST APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, or backend frameworks. • Experience with SQL, NoSQL databases, data pipelines, or data-processing frameworks. • Familiarity with AWS, Azure, or other cloud platforms. • Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Git, Terraform, Helm, or similar development and deployment technologies. • Familiarity with MLOps, model deployment, observability, evaluation, or production AI workflows. • Experience developing software for disconnected, classified, edge, or other constrained environments. • Experience building prototypes, proofs of concept, technical demos, or experimental software. • Experience working in R&D, defense technology, applied AI, or startup-like engineering environments. • , defense technology, applied AI, or startup-like engineering environments. • What Success Looks Like • In this role, success means turning mission problems and R&D concepts into software that actually works. You will be expected to write code, build and integrate AI capabilities, test ideas quickly, and work closely with the team to determine what is worth developing further. • You do not need to be an expert in every AI framework or infrastructure technology listed above. We are looking for a strong software developer who understands how to build reliable applications, has meaningful exposure to modern AI development, and is comfortable learning new technologies as the R&D mission evolves. • Travel & Event Support • This role requires approximately 15% travel for R&D events, technical demos, collaboration sessions, and mission-focused engagements. • Travel is planned in advance whenever possible and may include customer-facing or internal engineering events. • Rackner is a software consultancy focused on building mission-critical systems for the U.S. government. Our teams work across cloud platforms, DevSecOps, AI/ML, distributed systems, and modern software engineering initiatives supporting federal agencies and national security missions. • Rackner engineers collaborate closely with technical leadership, program teams, and mission stakeholders to design, build, and improve software systems that address complex operational challenges.