Detroit Defense is a leader in delivering advanced solutions to the Department of War (DoW), focused on national security through cutting-edge technology. They specialize in Systems Engineering, Combat Vehicle Integration, Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, IT, Data Analytics, and Software Development. The company upholds core values of Trustworthy, Mission Driven, Creative, and Agile, acting as a complex systems integrator for the U.S. Government to provide end-to-end lifecycle support. Detroit Defense is a proud recipient of the Hire Vets Gold Medallion Award since 2022 and is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, encouraging veterans to apply.

About the Position

Introduction

Detroit Defense is seeking a highly motivated and customer-oriented AI Engineer to join their team. This role is crucial in advancing the company's mission across the Department of Defense (DoD) by developing and integrating intelligent systems into software products. The AI Engineer will work on conversational AI, machine learning, and collaborate closely with software engineering teams.

Responsibilities

Integrate conversational AI assistant features into software applications, overseeing the entire experience.
Design, implement, and evaluate tool/function calling for AI assistants to reliably invoke backend capabilities and deliver accurate results.
Write, test, and refine prompts; and improve the accuracy and effectiveness of Large Language Model (LLM) and tool-calling behavior.
Build, train, and evaluate machine learning models for classification, prediction, and simulation tasks.
Collaborate with software engineers to integrate AI capabilities into applications and services.
Utilize Git for version control and contribute to shared team repositories.
Document work and communicate results clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Support the deployment, testing, and iteration of AI capabilities alongside the broader engineering team.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience integrating large language models via APIs, including function/tool calling and structured (e.g., JSON) outputs.
Foundational understanding of machine learning and data science concepts (supervised learning, model evaluation, statistics).
Working knowledge of Git and collaborative software development workflows (version control, branching, code review).
Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively on a cross-functional engineering team.
U.S. person (per ITAR/EAR) able to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government Secret clearance.

Nice to Have

Strong proficiency in Python and/or C# (depth in either is welcome; both is a plus).
Experience building chat/assistant interfaces or agentic systems, ideally in production.
Familiarity with tool-calling/agent frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and vector databases.
Experience defining evaluations or test harnesses to measure and improve LLM and tool-calling reliability.
Internship, academic, or project experience building and deploying models or AI features end-to-end.
Exposure to software engineering fundamentals: APIs, testing, CI/CD, containerization.
Use of GitLab for issue tracking and software configuration management.
Familiarity with secure AI/compute environments.