Senior LLM / RAG Engineer

Overview 

We are looking for a Senior‑Level Engineer to lead the development and sustainment of Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) AI prototypes for a national‑security mission. You will work directly with customer stakeholders to expand an existing prototype and deliver new LLM‑powered capabilities that help analysts understand and act on large volumes of proprietary data.  In this role, you will combine data engineering, model serving, GPU‑based inference, and rapid application development to deliver high‑impact AI tools in a secure environment. 

 

Key Responsibilities 

• Maintain and extend current RAG prototypes to integrate new datasets and features 
  • Build and optimize data ingest pipelines using Python and AWS services 
  • Develop LLM/embedding pipelines and operate GPU inference workloads 
  • Deploy and manage containerized services in Kubernetes‑like or Docker‑based environments 
  • Implement vector search solutions using modern vector databases 
  • Develop mission‑focused UIs using Streamlit or similar tools for rapid prototyping 
  • Use tools such as sglang, Ray Serve, and LlamaIndex to operationalize LLM capabilities 
  • Collaborate closely with analysts and mission leaders to understand use cases and rapidly iterate on prototypes 
  • Ensure solutions follow customer security, compliance, and operational guidelines 
  • Write technical documentation for deployments, APIs, and system behaviors 

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in an area relevant to the position with 12+ years of applicable experience OR a Master’s degree in an area relevant to the position with 10 years of applicable experience; an additional 4 years of applicable experience maybe considered in lieu of a degree.
• Active TS/SCI or SCI eligibility and active polygraph or ability to obtain a polygraph 
• Strong hands‑on experience with AWS services (EC2, S3, IAM, container services) 
• Expertise with Python and Linux in operational environments 
• Ability to design, deploy, and manage Docker‑based workloads 
• Experience with GPU inference, model serving, and LLM fundamentals 
• Experience working with structured, semi‑structured, and unstructured data
• Familiarity with CI/CD basics (Git, Jenkins, etc.) 

 

Preferred Skills 

• Streamlit or similar tools for rapid UI development
• Experience with vector stores (Milvus or comparable)
• Familiarity with embedding generation and RAG pipeline tooling
• Experience with sglang, Ray Serve, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face, or similar frameworks 
• AWS certifications 
• Knowledge of prompt engineering and evaluation best practices 

 

Peraton offers enhanced benefits to employees working on this critical National Security program, which include heavily subsidized employee benefits coverage for you and your dependents, 25 days of PTO accrued annually up to a generous PTO cap and eligible to participate in an attractive bonus plan.

Peraton is a next-generation national security company that drives missions of consequence spanning the globe and extending to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. As the world’s leading mission capability integrator and transformative enterprise IT provider, we deliver trusted, highly differentiated solutions and technologies to protect our nation and allies. Peraton operates at the critical nexus between traditional and nontraditional threats across all domains: land, sea, space, air, and cyberspace. The company serves as a valued partner to essential government agencies and supports every branch of the U.S. armed forces. Each day, our employees do the can’t be done by solving the most daunting challenges facing our customers. Visit peraton.com to learn how we’re keeping people around the world safe and secure.

$146,000 - $234,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position. Salary is determined by various factors, including but not limited to, the scope and responsibilities of the position, the individual’s experience, education, knowledge, skills, and competencies, as well as geographic location and business and contract considerations. Depending on the position, employees may be eligible for overtime, shift differential, and a discretionary bonus in addition to base pay.

EEO: Equal opportunity employer, including disability and protected veterans, or other characteristics protected by law.