AI Innovation Lead
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Nov 13, 2026. First seen by Alion on Nov 13, 2026. Steampunk scores A on the Alion truth index.
Overview
We are seeking a hands-on, creative, and technically strong AI Innovation Lead to support our client delivery teams in bringing modern AI solutions to life within public-sector organizations. This role is focused on client enablement, prototyping, and cross-functional engagement-helping our clients understand the potential of AI, design proofs-of-concept, and build working prototypes that demonstrate value in their specific mission context.
The ideal candidate combines strong technical skills (especially with GenAI, LLMs, data pipelines, and cloud-native services) with the ability to collaborate across disciplines-working with DevSecOps teams, cloud working groups, data stewards, and communities of practice to drive AI adoption and build momentum. You’ll play a critical role in bridging the gap between strategy and execution, demonstrating how AI can solve real-world problems and catalyze digital transformation.
Contributions
This role is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of technical innovation and human-centered impact. You’ll help our clients not only understand what AI can do, but also show them how through prototypes, pilots, and practice. You’ll be an early advocate for the latest AI service offerings that are available for our clients. You'll join a collaborative, forward-leaning culture that values exploration, rapid iteration, and practical impact. You’ll contribute to the growth of our AI & Data Exploitation Practice.
Your key contributions include:
- Client AI Enablement & Education
- Serve as a trusted advisor to the client organization on modern AI capabilities, best practices, and responsible use
- Develop AI education materials, tutorials, demo videos, and onboarding sessions that are tailored to the client organization’s needs
- Lead or support AI enablement events such as workshops, lunch-and-learns, innovation sprints, and capability briefings
- Prototyping & Proof-of-Concepts
- Design and implement AI prototypes and proof-of-concept solutions tailored to specific mission use cases (e.g., summarization, entity extraction, classification, semantic search)
- Work with cloud platform teams to integrate prototypes into modern cloud environments (e.g., AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI)
- Leverage RAG pipelines, orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex), and LLM APIs to rapidly deliver working demos
- Cross-Functional Integration
- Participate in communities of practice and cross-team working groups (e.g., cloud, data, architecture, cybersecurity) to ensure AI adoption is aligned with broader modernization goals
- Share findings, prototype patterns, and reusable components across delivery teams to accelerate reuse and scale impact
- Serve as a liaison between data scientists, platform engineers, and user-facing teams to ensure end-to-end viability of AI solutions
- Standards, Security & Compliance
- Ensure all AI solutions are designed with responsible AI principles, data sensitivity awareness, and security-first practices
- Collaborate with compliance and governance stakeholders to vet tools, define usage boundaries, and mitigate risks in AI application
Qualifications
- Ability to hold a position of public trust with the US government
- Bachelor’s degree and 10+ years of work experience, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
- 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, or applied AI/ML roles
- Demonstrated hands-on experience with modern GenAI tooling, such as:
- (GPT-4), Claude, Gemini, Llama 3
- LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar RAG frameworks
- AWS Bedrock, GCP Vertex AI, Azure OpenAI Service
- Vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma)
- Strong Python development skills with familiarity in building data pipelines, API wrappers, and lightweight front-ends for demos
- Ability to build and present AI-powered demos to both technical and non-technical audiences
- Familiarity with DevSecOps and CI/CD principles
- Familiarity with GitHub
- Experience engaging with external clients or business stakeholders in a consultative role
Preferred:
- Experience delivering AI capabilities into federal government agencies or highly regulated industries
- Experience customizing AI services for biomedical or health research
- Understanding of NIST AI Risk Management Framework and other public-sector digital policy memos
- Hands-on knowledge of data governance, PII handling, and compliance-aware prototyping
- Exposure to Human-Centered Design practices, user research synthesis, or journey mapping
- Prior involvement in standing up or contributing to an AI Community of Practice or Innovation Hub
About steampunk
Steampunk relies on several factors to determine salary, including but not limited to geographic location, contractual requirements, education, knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience. The projected compensation range for this position is $145,000 to 185,000. The estimate displayed represents a typical annual salary range for this position. Annual salary is just one aspect of Steampunk’s total compensation package for employees. Learn more about additional Steampunk benefits here.
Identity Statement
As part of the application process, you are expected to be on camera during interviews and assessments. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud.
Steampunk is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, bringing new thinking to clients in the Homeland, Federal Civilian, Health and DoD sectors. Through our Human-Centered delivery methodology, we are fundamentally changing the expectations our Federal clients have for true shared accountability in solving their toughest mission challenges. If you want to learn more about our story, visit http://www.steampunk.com.
We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Steampunk participates in the E-Verify program.