Senior Artificial Intelligence Specialist - Federal Aviation Programs

About the role

MicroTheory Engineering (MTE) is hiring a Senior Artificial Intelligence Specialist to serve as the resident AI subject-matter expert supporting a federal aviation customer. In this role you will help the customer adopt and operate AI to its fullest and most appropriate extent: surfacing high-value use cases, guiding sound technical and architectural decisions, and ensuring every deployment is effective, defensible, and compliant with federal responsible-AI requirements.

This is a senior individual-contributor advisory role. You will work at the intersection of mission stakeholders, government leadership, and technical delivery teams by translating operational needs into AI solutions, and translating AI capabilities, limitations, and risks back into terms decision-makers can act on. Deep, current expertise in modern AI/ML is required. Knowledge of the FAA and the National Airspace System is a strong advantage but is not required.

What you'll do

• Serve as the trusted AI advisor to the customer: assess current AI maturity and build a practical roadmap to expand responsible AI adoption.
• Identify, scope, and prioritize AI/ML use cases by mission value, feasibility, and risk, including advising when AI is *not* the right tool.
• Evaluate models, tools, platforms, and vendor offerings; advise on build-vs-buy, architecture, data readiness, and integration.
• Establish and apply rigorous model evaluation and validation practices covering accuracy, robustness, bias and fairness, security, and fitness for purpose.
• Implement responsible-AI and AI-governance practices consistent with current federal guidance (e.g., OMB M-25-21 and M-25-22) and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, including impact assessments, human oversight, and ongoing monitoring for higher-impact use cases.
• Guide safe, well-documented paths to production, including performance thresholds and clear criteria to pause or roll back underperforming systems.
• Pa...