Lead AI Developer

Summary: Leads the design and deployment of AI agents, LLMs, and integrations for university research, staff workflows, and student incubator projects. Mentors student developers and owns the technical roadmap of the PatriotAI product.

Department: Information Technology
Classification: Info Technology Spec 3
Job Category: Classified Staff
Job Type: Full-Time
Work Schedule: Full-time (1.0 FTE, 40 hrs/wk)
Location: Fairfax, VA
Workplace Type: On Site Required
Sponsorship Eligibility: Not eligible for visa sponsorship
Pay Band: 06
Salary: Salary commensurate with education and experience
Criminal Background Check: Yes
About the Department:
Information Technology Services (ITS) provides technology and collaborative solutions that contribute to and facilitate innovative teaching and learning opportunities for students and faculty of the George Mason University community. ITS works transparently to drive excellence in teaching, research, and administrative operations.
About the Position:
The Lead AI Developer ensures that every AI agent deployed to support faculty research, automate staff workflows, or proactively guide students operates flawlessly and free of hallucinations. Furthermore, this role serves as the elite technical lead for the student incubator, transforming student interns into highly recruited enterprise AI engineers through rigorous code review and architectural mentorship. The role has deep AI skills in building AI Agents, Agentic AI Platforms, LLM’s and understand highly technical AI concepts required for building and managing an AI platform. Additionally, this role will serve as the PatriotAI product owner, shaping the technical roadmap for the platform's lifecycle.
Responsibilities:
Core Agentic Architecture & Intelligence Integration
Design, code, and deploy the foundational AI infrastructure utilizing the Microsoft enterprise stack (Azure AI Studio, Copilot Studio, AI Foundry);
Build the complex, bidirectional intelligence loops required to process IoT sensor data for the Campus Digital Twin, and engineer advanced AI copilots designed to accelerate massive data analysis and complex grant writing for university researchers; and
Engineer the complex API integrations connecting the Azure AI stack with the university’s Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) infrastructure to power the proactive, AI-driven threat-hunting capabilities of the Student SOC.
Technical Mentorship & Zero-Hallucination Quality Control
Serve as the senior technical expert for the 10-20 student builders;
Conduct rigorous code reviews, refine their prompt engineering strategies, and teach advanced context-window management; and
Act as the final technical gatekeeper to ensure all student-built AI agents are secure, scalable, and devoid of hallucinations before production release.
SSOT Data Engineering & “Touch Once” Automation
Build and maintain the highly secure data pipelines connecting the university’s core legacy databases to the modern AI platform;
Engineer the backend of the Digital Forms Backbone, strictly enforcing governance, security, and architectural protocols so that staff and faculty are liberated from organizational requirements that could cause rework;
Organize work around industry best practices and educate/train students to adopt recognized gold standards, such as NIST, ITIL, Agile, etc.; and
Architect and deploy the autonomous AI Help Desk agent, building a secure Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline that connects directly to the enterprise ITS Knowledge Base, ensuring Zero-Hallucination IT troubleshooting for the campus community.
Multi-Cloud Prototyping & Technical Scaling
Research, prototype, and prepare the technical infrastructure for Patriot AI’s expansion into multi-cloud ecosystems;
Ensure the architecture remains flexible enough to enable researchers and students to match the best possible Large Language Model (LLM) to their specific university use case; and
Emphasize best practices and use industry tools to ensure students are market- and industry-ready when they graduate.
Required Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in related field;
Significant experience in systems engineering, software development, and explicitly deploying machine learning or generative AI solutions into a live enterprise production environment;
Experience with Product Operating Model;
Advanced proficiency in tools such as Python, generative AI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex), and complex RESTful API integrations;
Demonstrated ability to architect retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines connected securely to enterprise databases;
Exceptional ability to communicate highly complex machine learning concepts to student developers, functioning as a patient but rigorous technical mentor;
Strong background with Agile methodologies, SDLC, API development, and project and Code management; and
Strong ability to communicate, collaborate and deliver high value products.
Preferred Qualifications:
Master’s degree in related field;
Considerable experience serving in a technical lead capacity, specifically mentoring junior developers, interns, or students through complex architectural builds;
Knowledge of IoT sensor data integration and digital twin technical concepts; and
Skill in optimizing vector databases and fine-tuning large language models to understand higher education terminologies and research vernacular.
Instructions to Applicants:
For full consideration, applicants must apply for Lead AI Developer at https://jobs.gmu.edu/. Complete and submit the online application to include three professional references with contact information, and provide a Cover Letter/Letter of Intent with Resume for review.
Posting Open Date: November 12, 2026
Posting Close Date: November 30, 2026
Open Until Filled: No