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Applied AI Engineering Manager

San Francisco, California, United States

CHAOS Inc. is a global technology company delivering next-generation capabilities to the defense and critical industrial sectors. Founded in 2022 by a seasoned leadership team, CHAOS has quickly become the place where world-class multi-disciplinary engineers come to build mission-critical technologies. CHAOS has a mission-focused culture, dedicated to solving the toughest technical challenges. Its unique agile engineering approach enables rapid prototyping, while deep partnerships with defense and industry ensure real-world solutions.

Role Overview: 

We are seeking a highly experienced and mission-oriented Applied AI Engineering Lead to drive the development, integration, and deployment of AI/ML-powered capabilities across CHAOS’ product lines. This individual will lead a high-caliber team of researchers and engineers, to ensure advanced AI research translates into tangible, real-world systems especially in defense applications. 

You must bring a strong record of applying AI in operational or productized environments, ideally in highly regulated or mission-driven sectors like aerospace, defense, or critical infrastructure. 

Responsibilities:  

  • Lead Applied AI Initiatives: Translate cutting-edge AI/ML research into deployable solutions, bridging the gap between academic innovation and operational impact. 
  • Team Leadership: Manage, mentor, and inspire a team of PhD-level AI engineers and ML researchers. Foster a culture of experimentation, rigor, and real-world delivery. 
  • System Architecture & Integration: Architect scalable AI solutions for perception, decision-making, sensor fusion, predictive analytics, and autonomous operations. 
  • Productization of AI: Ensure AI models are robust, interpretable, testable, and performant under real-world conditions—especially in adversarial, low-power, or edge-deployed environments. 
  • Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with systems, software, hardware, and product teams to define AI requirements, develop interfaces, and integrate capabilities into platforms. 
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Represent CHAOS in technical briefings, customer discussions, and strategy sessions with government and industry partners. 
  • Hands-On Development: While this is a leadership role, we value technical engagement. You should be comfortable rolling up your sleeves when needed. 
  • Work onsite 4-5 days per week out of our offices in San Francisco, Hawthorne, or Seattle. 
  • Travel up to 20% as needed to support program and customer objectives. 

Minimum Requirements: 

  • Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or related technical discipline. 
  • 10+ years of experience in AI/ML development, with at least 5 years leading technical teams. 
  • Proven track record of deploying AI solutions in production or operational systems, not just in research settings. 
  • Experience with embeddings, RAG, RLHF, prompt engineering, and fine tuning. 
  • Deep expertise in applied ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow, LangChain, LlamaIndex, and JAX), and experience with model lifecycle, deployment, and MLOps pipelines. 
  • Familiarity with embedded, edge, or resource-constrained AI environments. 
  • Strong knowledge of reinforcement learning, NLP, or signal processing. 
  • Experience interfacing with databases (SQL, MongoDB, etc.) 
  • U.S. Citizenship or lawful permanent residency with the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. security clearance. 
  • Must be able to work onsite 4–5 days per week in San Francisco, Hawthorne, or Seattle. 

 Preferred Requirements: 

  • Current or prior U.S. security clearance. 
  • Experience with AI in defense, or aerospace. 
  • Familiarity with DARPA, DoD, or programs related to AI. 
  • Background in AI, adversarial robustness, or mission assurance. 
  • Familiarity with defense compliance frameworks (e.g., RMF, STIGs, or MIL-STD). 
  • Experience with tools like JIRA and Confluence 

Why CHAOS?

  • Health Benefits: Your medical, dental and vision benefits will be 100% paid for by the company
  • Additional benefits: life, FSA, HSA, 401k (+ Company match), and more
  • Our Perks: free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO (for exempt employees), casual dress code
  • Compensation Components: competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance + (coming soon!) annual bonuses
  • Company Size: 100 employees and counting!
  • More About Us: We're building the next generation of aerospace, defense and critical industry technologies with a seasoned team of mission-focused individuals. We were founded in June 2022 and our goal is to become the platform where world-class engineers come to solve critical, real-world problems. We use agile engineering approaches which enable rapid prototyping, deep partnerships with the defense industry ensuring real-world application, and our newly-invented Coherence platform (through which we’ve made a fundamental breakthrough) improves sensor performance and decision-making in real-time. As of April 2025 we have raised $490M (including a $275M Series C at a $2B valuation) from some of the most prominent VC funds and investors including Accel, NEA, 8VC, and Valar. With a managing team that includes Epirus’ founding members (responsible for building a $1.5B company from scratch) + key drivers from Palantir (instrumental in Palantir’s growth to $1B in revenue), we are well-positioned to become one of the fastest growing companies to date!

 

Salary Range: $180,000-$280,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

#LI-onsite

 

 

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