Junior AI/ML Engineer (Leawood, KS & Arlington, VA) - Torch AI : Job Details

Become Part of a Meaningful Mission Torch.AI is a defense-focused AI-software company on a mission to become the leading provider of critical data infrastructure for U.S. Defense and National Security. We deliver advanced AI and data software capabilities directly to customer mission owners to meet flexible, user-defined specifications and enable a decision advantage for the warfighter. We're passionate about solving complex problems that improve national security, support our warfighters, and protect our nation. Join us in our mission to help organizations Unlock Human Potential. The U.S. defense and national security industry offers an unparalleled opportunity to contribute to the safety and well-being of the nation while engaging with cutting-edge technologies. As a vital sector that shapes global stability, it offers a dynamic environment to tackle complex challenges across multidisciplinary domains. With substantial investment in innovation, the industry is at the forefront of developing AI, autonomous systems, and advanced national security solutions, each founded on the premise that information is the new battlefield. If this type of work is of interest, we'd love to hear from you. The Environment: Unlock Your Potential As a Junior AI/ML Engineer at Torch.AI, you will be at the forefront of building software that scales across Torch.AI's platform capabilities. Your software will be deployed across an array of operational and research & development efforts for mission-critical customer programs and projects. Each of our customers requires unique technical solutions to enable an asymmetric advantage on the battlefield. Torch.AI's patented software helps remove common obstacles such as manual-intensive data processing, parsing, and analysis, thereby reducing cognitive burden for the warfighter. Our end-to-end data processing, orchestration, and fusion platform supports a wide variety of military use cases, domains, operations, and echelons. Customers enjoy enterprise-grade capabilities that meet specialized needs. Torch.AI encourages company-wide collaboration to share context, skills, and expertise across a variety of tools, technologies, and development practices. You'll work autonomously while driving coordinated, collaborative decisions across cross-functional teams comprised of defense and national security experts, veterans, business leaders, and experienced software engineers. Your code will advance back-end data orchestration and graph-compute capabilities to deliver elegant data and intelligence products. You will have the opportunity to harden and scale existing platform capabilities, tools, and technologies, while also working to innovate and introduce new iterative capabilities and features which benefit our company and customers. Successful candidates thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and mission-driven environment. We hire brilliant patriots. You'll be encouraged to think creatively, challenge conventional thinking, and identify alternative approaches for delivering value to customers across complex problem sets. Your day-to-day will vary, adapting to the requirements of our customers and the technical needs of respective use cases. One day, you may be supporting the development of a new proof of capability concept for a new customer program; another you may be focused on optimizing system performance to help scale a production deployment; the next you may be working directly with customers to understand their requirements with deep intellectual curiosity.

• Our flat operating model puts every employee at the forefront of our customers' missions.
• We value customer intimacy, unique perspectives, and dedication to delivering lasting impact and results. You'll have the opportunity to work on the frontlines of major customer programs and influence lasting success for Torch.AI and your teammates.
• You'll have the opportunity to gain experience across a wide range of projects and tasks, from designing and demonstrating early capabilities and prototypes to deploying large-scale mission systems.
• You'll contribute directly to Torch.AI's continued position as a market leader for data infrastructure AI and compete against multi-billion-dollar incumbents and high-tech AI companies.

Responsibilities

• Implement, train, evaluate, and maintain ML models using frameworks such as Scikit-learn, spaCy, or PyTorch/TensorFlow.
• Collaborate with team members to build retrieval and generation pipelines using large language models and embeddings.
• Contribute to data preparation and feature engineering processes to improve model performance.
• Support development of prototype applications using LLM frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Haystack, or similar).
• Perform experiments and evaluations on NLP/NLU tasks (classification, entity resolution, information retrieval).
• Learn and apply best practices for model deployment and monitoring in production environments.
• Participate in code reviews, documentation, and agile team activities.

What We Value

• B.S. degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 1-3 years of experience in software engineering or applied ML (including internships or academic projects).
• Strong Python programming skills.
• Familiarity with one or more ML/NLP libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, spaCy, Transformers from Hugging Face).
• Basic understanding of data preprocessing, model training, and evaluation workflows.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) or interest in learning them.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills; eagerness to learn from peers and mentors.
• Industry experience, preferably within the defense industry and/or intelligence community or related sectors, a plus.
• Awareness of ethical considerations and responsible AI practices.
• Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, and ability to thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, embeddings, or vector search (not required, nice to have)
• Awareness of DevOps practices like CI/CD or Docker (not expected to own these at this level)
• Exposure to databases (SQL or NoSQL), data pipelines, or orchestration tools (Airflow, Prefect) (not required, nice to have).
• Familiarity with MLOps concepts or tools such as MLflow, DVC, or FastAPI (not required, nice to have).

Security Clearance We are hiring for multiple positions for each role. Some roles require a Secret, Top Secret, or Top Secret/SCI Security Clearance on Day 1. If you do not currently hold a clearance but are interested in this role and believe you are eligible for a clearance, we still encourage you to submit an application. Work Location We are hiring for roles at our headquarters in Leawood, KS and remotely in the Arlington, VA region. Candidates in the Arlington, VA region may work remotely while not on customer site. Candidates in the Leawood, KS region may require some limited travel to customer sites (