Applied AI Engineer - Federal

About Snorkel At Snorkel, we believe meaningful AI doesn’t start with the model, it starts with the data. We’re on a mission to help enterprises transform expert knowledge into specialized AI at scale. The AI landscape has gone through incredible changes between 2015, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler! We’re on a mission to democratize AI by building the definitive AI data development platform. The AI landscape has gone through incredible change between 2016, when Snorkel started as a research project in the Stanford AI Lab, to the generative AI breakthroughs of today. But one thing has remained constant: the data you use to build AI is the key to achieving differentiation, high performance, and production-ready systems. We work with some of the world’s largest organizations to empower scientists, engineers, financial experts, product creators, journalists, and more to build custom AI with their data faster than ever before. Excited to help us redefine how AI is built? Apply to be the newest Snorkeler! As an Applied AI Engineer, you’ll research and utilize state-of-the-art Gen AI and machine learning (ML) techniques to successfully deliver solutions to our customers. You will work directly with our customers to understand their business and technical needs and design and deliver AI solutions to solve them - either by leveraging Snorkel Flow or developing custom approaches when needed. You will also help define Snorkel’s Applied AI tooling by translating repeatable real-world challenges into reusable solution recipes, workflows, best practices, and platform-level capabilities that become part of Snorkel Flow’s next generation of AI tooling. We move fast and are constantly prototyping and innovating new ways to deliver value to our customers. This position is ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex problems, bridging the gap between AI technology and business value, working directly with customers, keeping up-to date with AI research, and standardizing bespoke solutions into internal recipes and staying naturally curious about the infrastructure that underpin the Applied AI stack end-to-end. Main Responsibilities Partner with customers to build and deploy impactful Gen AI and machine learning solutions, from use case scoping and data exploration to model development and deployment. This may involve leveraging Snorkel Flow or designing custom approaches using state-of-the-art tools, with the goal of delivering real business value and informing the evolution of the Snorkel platform. Develop and implement state of the art AI systems such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), fine-tuning pipelines, prompt engineering recipes and agentic workflows. Create augmented real-world datasets and comprehensive evaluation workflows to ensure model reliability, transparency, and stakeholder trust. A data- and evaluation-first mindset is essential for success in this role. Forge and manage relationships with our customers’ leadership and stakeholders to ensure successful development and deployment of AI projects with Snorkel Flow. Collaborate closely with pre-sales Solutions and Product teams to map customer needs to existing capabilities, prioritize roadmap gaps, and guide successful project setup. Work with other Applied AI Engineers to standardize solutions and contribute to internal tooling and best practices. Lead stakeholder education on quantitative capabilities, helping them to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches and what problems are best-suited for Snorkel AI. Serve as the voice of our customers for new AI paradigms, data science workflows, and share customer feedback to product teams. Conduct one-to-few and one-to-many enablement workshops to transfer knowledge to customers considering or already using Snorkel AI. As part of our team, you will have the opportunity to work on all aspects of complex National Security problems. Annual travel up to 25%. Preferred Qualifications B.S. degree in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or comparable degree/experience. 3+ years of customer-facing experience in the design and implementation of AI/ML solutions. Proficiency in Python, including strong grounding in software engineering fundamentals (e.g., modular design, testing, profiling, packaging) and experience with modern Python constructs and libraries for type validation and typed data modeling (e.g., pydantic), building type-safe systems (e.g., mypy), testing (e.g., pytest), packaging and environment configuration (e.g., poetry), API and service frameworks (e.g., FastAPI), serialization and structured data handling (e.g., msgspec), and orchestration tooling relevant to ML deployment (e.g., Ray, Airflow). Expertise across the Applied AI stack, spanning classical ML libraries (e.g., scikit-learn), deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch), foundation-model ecosystems (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers), vector/embedding tooling (e.g., FAISS), data processing frameworks (e.g., pandas, Spark), retrieval/RAG tooling (e.g., Chroma, Weaviate), synthetic dataset curation, evaluation workflows, and LLM orchestration, workflow, agent authoring tools (e.g., LlamaIndex, LangGraph, CrewAI). Experience leading strategic, customer-facing initiatives and collaborating with business stakeholders to ensure ML solutions drive successful business outcomes, with a strong focus on teaching and enablement. Outstanding presentation skills to technical and executive audiences, whether impromptu on a whiteboard or using presentations and demos. Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and balance priorities across multiple projects at once. Experience reviewing and drafting responses to federal Requests for Comment (RFCs), Requests for Information (RFIs), Requests for Proposals (RFPs), etc. is preferred Experience working across the Civilian, DOD and NATSEC agencies, inclusive of experience in Federal Law Enforcement, Healthcare, Financial/Regulatory and Military operations and logistics Candidates must have an active TS (Top Secret) Clearance Compensation range for Tier 2 Location - Washington DC Region, $160K - $250K OTE. All offers also include equity in the form of employee stock options. Our compensation ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Locations Must reside in the Washington DC Region. #LI-CG1 Salary Range $160,000—$250,000 USD Be Your Best at Snorkel Joining Snorkel AI means becoming part of a company that has market proven solutions, robust funding, and is scaling rapidly—offering a unique combination of stability and the excitement of high growth. As a member of our team, you’ll have meaningful opportunities to shape priorities and initiatives, influence key strategic decisions, and directly impact our ongoing success. Whether you’re looking to deepen your technical expertise, explore leadership opportunities, or learn new skills across multiple functions, you’re fully supported in building your career in an environment designed for growth, learning, and shared success. Snorkel AI is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Snorkel AI embraces diversity and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment. Snorkel AI prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, performance, merit, and business need. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.