AI & Automation Engineer

Location Bethesda, MD 20817 US (Primary)

Category Information Technology Job Type Full-Time Salary Range $105,000-$115,000 Education Bachelor's Degree Travel None Job Description * The AI and Automation Engineer designs, prototypes, builds, integrates, evaluates, and helps productionize AI-enabled and automation solutions that address defined business and project needs. Working within TRI’s AI and Digital Enablement capability, the AI and Automation Engineer translates qualified opportunities into working solutions using established AI models and services (focused on Azure/Foundry), agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), workflow automation, data integration, and other appropriate technologies. The role emphasizes rapid experimentation, integration, and measurable evaluation, including recognizing when conventional automation or existing technology provides a better solution than AI. * This is an applied AI engineering role, not an AI research or model-development position. The AI and Automation Engineer is not expected to develop, train, or research new foundation models. Inste.ad, the engineer selects, configures, integrates, grounds, evaluates, and applies existing models and AI services within secure enterprise solutions. The engineer works closely with Business Liaisons, business SMEs, application developers, infrastructure, and security teams to move promising concepts from prototype through evaluation, pilot, and production. Current areas of emphasis include Microsoft Foundry and Azure AI services, RAG and enterprise knowledge solutions, AI agents, Power Platform automation, enterprise integration, and evaluation of solution quality, security, performance, cost, and business value. This aligns with TRI’s planned model in which AI Engineers build and evaluate solutions while leveraging reusable platform and architecture patterns rather than developing underlying AI models Job Requirements * Software/application development experience, preferably Python plus API/integration development in C#. * Demonstrated experience building AI-enabled or automation solutions. * Understanding of generative AI, LLMs, prompt/context engineering, RAG and AI agents. * Experience integrating applications, APIs, data sources and enterprise systems. * Experience evaluating, troubleshooting and improving AI or automation solutions. * Understanding of cloud security, authentication, access control and secure data handling. * Strong problem-solving, prototyping and iterative-development skills. * Hands-on experience designing, developing, and implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions, including document ingestion, data chunking, embedding generation, retrieval optimization, and integration with Large Language Models (LLMs) to deliver accurate, context-aware AI applications. * Working knowledge of vector databases, vector search, and semantic search technologies, including embedding models, similarity search, hybrid search, and retrieval techniques to efficiently index, retrieve, and process structured and unstructured enterprise data. * Experience with LLM fine-tuning and model customization techniques, including dataset preparation, supervised fine-tuning, parameter-efficient fine-tuning (e.g., LoRA/QLoRA), and model evaluation to optimize performance, accuracy, and domain-specific capabilities.

Strongly Preferred

* Microsoft Foundry / Azure AI services. * Azure AI Search / Foundry IQ and RAG architectures. * Power Automate / Power Platform. * Azure OpenAI or other model APIs. * Azure application services and identity. * Microsoft Graph and Microsoft 365 integration. * Agentic solution development. * AI evaluation and observability. * Clinical research, life sciences, regulatory or federal contracting experience. * Experience with enterprise document/knowledge systems. * Experience productionizing prototypes. * Familiarity with regulated or validated environments. * Experience applying AI to document intelligence, workflow automation, knowledge retrieval, QC or decision-support use cases. * *This role is fully remote for those living in the DMV area. (Maryland, Virginia, Washington D.C.)* We are equal opportunity/affirmative action employers, committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under state or local law.