AI Specialist, KnoxAI

Job Title: AI Specialist

Department: Engineering / AI

Reports To: CTO

Location: New York City (Hybrid or Remote Considered)

Classification: Full-Time, Exempt

Estimated Compensation Range: $180k-$200k

Focus: Co-own the development, training, and continuous evolution of KnoxAI to support Knox’s secure cloud and compliance mission

About Knox

Knox runs the largest Federal managed cloud, building and operating secure cloud and AI environments that support the U.S. government’s most critical missions — from national security and public safety to essential public services. Our customers rely on Knox to deploy production systems that meet the highest standards for security, reliability, and compliance.

Work at Knox is high-impact and purpose-driven. The problems we solve are high-stakes, the expectations are high, and the results are visible. Speed, rigor, and trust matter here - because the environments we secure cannot fail. Your contributions are visible, your expertise is relied upon, and the impact of your work is immediate and measurable. We operate at federal scale, securing some of the most sensitive government environments in the country - because the systems we build must perform without fail.

The Role

The AI Specialist will play a critical role in designing, building, training, and continuously improving KnoxAI, Knox’s proprietary AI capabilities that support secure cloud operations, compliance automation, and mission-critical decision-making.

This role is not limited to model training or experimentation. You will be responsible for shaping how KnoxAI evolves alongside the business, ensuring it is accurate, explainable, secure, and aligned with real customer and operational needs. You’ll work closely with Engineering, Product, Security, Compliance, and Operations to translate complex requirements into production-ready AI systems.

This is a hands-on, high-ownership role suited for an exceptional AI practitioner - someone who is both deeply technical and comfortable operating in ambiguous, high-stakes environments. Knox does not build novelty AI. We build AI that must work, scale, and stand up to scrutiny.

Responsibilities

• Own the design, development, training, and ongoing refinement of KnoxAI models and systems, ensuring they meet evolving business, security, and compliance requirements

• Develop and maintain high-quality training pipelines, including dataset selection, labeling strategies, evaluation frameworks, and continuous feedback loops

• Improve model performance, reliability, explainability, and robustness through experimentation, tuning, and systematic evaluation

• Partner closely with Product and Engineering to translate real-world Knox use cases into production AI capabilities, not prototypes

• Collaborate with Security and Compliance teams to ensure AI systems align with federal requirements, audit-ability expectations, and risk management standards

• Implement monitoring and retraining strategies to detect drift, performance degradation, or emerging risks over time

• Contribute to architectural decisions around AI infrastructure, deployment, and MLOps in secure, regulated environments

• Document model behavior, assumptions, limitations, and decision logic to support internal understanding and external scrutiny

• Stay current on advances in AI, machine learning, and data science, selectively applying new techniques where they materially improve KnoxAI

• Remain hands-on while helping establish repeatable, scalable AI development practices as Knox grows

Required Qualifications

• Strong foundation in data science, machine learning, and applied AI, with demonstrated experience building and operating models used in real production systems

• Advanced proficiency in Python and modern ML / AI frameworks, with the ability to move comfortably between experimentation and production code

• Working proficiency in Node.js and/or Bun.js, with experience integrating AI and ML systems into production application backends and services

• Hands-on experience with data-centric AI practices, including dataset design, curation, labeling strategies, versioning, and managing data quality over time

• Proven ability to train, fine-tune, and evaluate models using rigorous validation approaches, with a clear understanding of tradeoffs between accuracy, precision, recall, and operational risk

• Experience designing and applying custom evaluation metrics aligned to real-world outcomes, including managing false positives and false negatives in high-stakes systems

• Experience operationalizing AI models in production environments, including deployment, monitoring, performance tracking, drift detection, retraining workflows, and rollback strategies

• Familiarity with MLOps practices and tooling, including model versioning, CI/CD for ML, and lifecycle management

• Ability to design explainable and auditable AI systems, with experience documenting model behavior, assumptions, limitations, and decision logic for internal and external stakeholders

• Strong systems-level thinking, with the ability to reason across data, models, infrastructure, security, and users to build durable, maintainable AI solutions

• Proven ability to operate independently, take ownership, and drive complex work forward in fast-moving, high-accountability environments

• Strong communication skills, including the ability to clearly explain complex AI concepts and tradeoffs to non-technical audiences

Bonus / Preferred

• Experience working with LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or applied AI systems

• Experience operating in regulated, security-sensitive, or compliance-driven environments

• Exposure to cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and secure system architectures

• Background in government, federal contracting, cybersecurity, or compliance-adjacent domains

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, especially the ability to explain complex AI concepts to non-experts

Hiring Requirement: Due to the nature of our work with federal government clients and compliance with applicable regulations, this position requires U.S. citizenship. Candidates must be able to provide documentation verifying U.S. citizenship status as part of the background check process.

Any offer of employment is contingent upon the successful completion of all required pre-employment screenings, including a background check, in accordance with applicable laws and government contract requirements.

Benefits & Perks

Knox offers a competitive employee benefits package including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life & Disability, unlimited PEO, and an employee funded 401k plan. Please note, benefits are subject to change.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status.

Compensation Range: $180K - $200K