aZ U8YYccFh - 100% Remote — United States

About the Company

ICF is a global advisory and technology services provider that combines industry expertise with technology to help clients address complex challenges, navigate change, and shape the future.

Its Digital Modernization Division delivers integrated strategic solutions to federal clients, with expertise in cloud, cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, data modernization, and digital transformation.

About the Role

ICF is seeking an AI Engineer to develop and operationalize artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, predictive analytics, and generative AI capabilities for a large federal agency's enterprise data and analytics ecosystem.

The cloud-based platform provides data storage, analytics, governance, and AI/ML capabilities to thousands of users. The team is focused on migrating legacy workloads, improving onboarding and support, expanding platform capabilities, and helping organizations adopt modern data and AI solutions.

In this role, you will build reusable AI/ML solutions, model deployment frameworks, prompt orchestration patterns, agentic workflows, and MLOps pipelines using Databricks ML, Azure Machine Learning, MLflow, Python, and cloud-scale data platforms. You will collaborate with engineering, governance, security, and business teams to support enterprise-wide AI adoption through model monitoring, performance evaluation, human-in-the-loop workflows, cost optimization, and responsible AI practices.

Contract Status

This position is contingent upon a contract award. It is not an immediate opening; however, ICF is actively conducting interviews and extending offers in anticipation of the award.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop NLP, text analytics, prompt orchestration, guardrails, content-filtering approaches, and human-in-the-loop workflows using VA-approved AI/ML tools and data environments.

• Translate unstructured-data use cases into repeatable technical patterns that address privacy, provenance, evaluation, monitoring, and operational integration.

• Work with Trustworthy AI, Security, Data Governance, and Customer Experience personnel to ensure generative AI capabilities are safe, useful, and governed.

• Apply NLP, LLM and generative AI patterns, prompt orchestration, retrieval and evaluation methods, guardrails, content filters, human-in-the-loop workflows, and Azure AI to support role responsibilities.

• Collaborate with product, engineering, security, governance, quality, and customer-facing stakeholders as required.

• Document work products, decisions, risks, and delivery evidence to support traceability and continuous improvement.

Required Qualifications

• U.S. citizenship is required due to federal contract requirements.

• Must reside in the United States, be authorized to work in the United States, and perform all work within the United States.

• Must have lived in the United States for three full years out of the last five years.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, or a related field. A master's degree may substitute for two years of relevant experience.

• 6+ years of experience designing, developing, and deploying AI/ML solutions in enterprise cloud environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs), generative AI, natural language processing (NLP), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, vector databases, and prompt engineering.

• Experience building AI applications and agentic workflows using Azure AI Services, Azure OpenAI, Databricks AI/ML, MLflow, LangChain, Semantic Kernel, or similar frameworks.

• Experience developing prompt orchestration, evaluation frameworks, model testing strategies, and AI application monitoring solutions.

• Experience implementing AI safety controls, content filtering, guardrails, human-in-the-loop review processes, and Trustworthy AI practices.

• Experience developing and maintaining MLOps pipelines, model deployment frameworks, model versioning, performance monitoring, and automated retraining processes.

• Strong programming skills in Python, SQL, and modern AI/ML libraries and frameworks.

• Experience with Databricks, Delta Lake, Azure Machine Learning, and enterprise-scale data platforms.

• Experience integrating AI solutions with cloud-native data pipelines, analytics platforms, APIs, and operational business applications.

• Experience supporting predictive analytics, document intelligence, text analytics, classification, summarization, recommendation, and generative AI use cases.

• Familiarity with enterprise data governance, metadata management, data lineage, privacy controls, and role-based access models in regulated environments.

• Experience optimizing AI/ML workloads for performance, scalability, reliability, and cloud cost management.

• Experience with CI/CD practices using GitHub.

• Experience working in Agile, cross-functional teams involving engineers, architects, data scientists, product owners, governance stakeholders, and business users.

• Experience supporting federal government, healthcare, or other highly regulated environments.

Professional Skills

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.

• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to prioritize and manage multiple responsibilities.

• Collaborative approach with a commitment to quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Location and Work Arrangement

This is a remote position, with a strong preference for candidates living in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Occasional onsite meetings will take place at the client site in Washington, DC.

ICF monitors employee work locations, blocks access from foreign locations and foreign IP addresses, and prohibits the use of personal VPN connections.

Compensation

$108,476.00–$184,409.00

Candidate AI Usage Policy

ICF does not permit candidates to use AI tools to generate or assist with interview responses, whether interviews are conducted in person or virtually. This policy is intended to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the interview process.

Candidates who require an accommodation involving AI must contact

•••••••• in advance. ICF is committed to providing the support needed to ensure equal opportunities for all candidates.

Working at ICF

ICF combines advisory expertise and technology services to help clients solve complex challenges and manage change. The company is committed to building an inclusive workplace where employees can share their expertise, collaborate, and pursue personal and professional goals.

Equal Employment Opportunity

ICF is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will be considered without discrimination. ICF will also consider applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Reasonable accommodations are available throughout the application and employment process, including for disabled veterans, individuals with disabilities, and individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs. To request an accommodation, contact ••••••••. All information provided will be kept confidential and used only as necessary to provide the requested accommodation.

Applicants may also review information about workplace discrimination rights and ICF's benefit offerings, which are included in the Transparency in (Benefits) Coverage Act.