Automation Engineering Manager Jobs in Reston, VA

Ranked among the largest accounting and consulting firms in the country and consistently recognized as a Great Place to Work, Cherry Bekaert delivers innovative advisory, assurance and tax services to our clients. We are proud to foster a collaborative environment focused on enabling your career growth and continuous professional development. Our Business Transformation team is looking for an AI Agent & Automation Developer. The AI Agent & Automation Developer will have the opportunity to work in a hybrid model from any of Cherry Bekaert's US office locations.

We are seeking a talented and motivated AI Agent & Automation Developer to join our team. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience building autonomous AI agents using large language models (LLMs), agent frameworks, and modern AI infrastructure. As an AI Agent & Automation Developer, you will design, implement, and deploy intelligent agents that operate autonomously within digital environments, driving innovation and operational excellence.
This role supports organizational transformation by solving complex business challenges through intelligent automation, agent orchestration, and advanced analytics. You must be adaptable, collaborative, and eager to learn new technologies to address multifaceted business problems.
A successful candidate is a proactive problem-solver with strong software engineering skills, ready to thrive in a fast-paced environment and communicate effectively with both technical and business stakeholders.

• Design and implement AI agents using LLMs, planning algorithms, and decision-making frameworks.

• Develop agent architectures that support autonomy, interactivity, and task completion.

• Integrate agents into applications, APIs, or workflows (e.g., chatbots, automation tools).

• Collaborate with researchers, engineers, and product teams to iterate on agent capabilities.

• Optimize agent behavior through feedback loops, reinforcement learning, or user interaction.

• Engineer and manage context for agents to ensure they access the right information at the right time. This includes applying methods such as:

• Prompt Engineering - injecting information directly into prompts.

• Fine-tuning - training models on additional data to embed knowledge (where applicable).

• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) - embedding documents into vector databases and retrieving semantically relevant information.

• Tool Use - leveraging sub-agents or deterministic models to locate and add relevant context.

• Hybrid Approaches - combining two or more methods to maximize reliability and relevance.

• Monitor performance, conduct evaluations, and implement safety and guardrail mechanisms.

• Maintain thorough documentation of agent logic, design decisions, and dependencies.

• Stay up to date with industry developments and advancements in AI, machine learning, and agent-based technologies.

• Collaborate with stakeholders and engineering teams to integrate AI agents with Microsoft-specific platforms such as Copilot Studio, Azure AI, and Semantic Kernel SDK.

• Build and deploy enterprise-grade Copilots using Microsoft's orchestration tools, enabling seamless interaction across Microsoft 365, Dynamics, and custom business applications.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field.

• Proven experience in agent-based systems, or intelligent automation, with a minimum of 2 years in a similar role.

• Strong programming skills in Python (or similar) and experience with AI/ML libraries (e.g., LangChain, OpenAI API, Hugging Face, PyTorch).

• Understanding of agent-based modeling, multi-agent systems, or reinforcement learning.

• Experience building applications with LLMs or generative AI models.

• Familiarity with API development, backend services, and deployment pipelines.

• Ability to work independently in experimental and fast-paced environments.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build strong relationships with business and technical stakeholders.

• Analytical mindset with the ability to solve complex problems and make data-driven decisions.

• Demonstrated understanding of data quality, integrity, and systems integration.

What you can expect from us:

• Our shared values that foster inclusion and belonging including uncompromising integrity, collaboration, trust, and mutual respect

• The opportunity to innovate and do work that motivates and engages you

• A collaborative environment focused on enabling you to further your career growth and continuous professional development

• Competitive compensation and a total rewards package that focuses on all aspects of your wellbeing

• Flexibility to do impactful work and the time to enjoy your life outside of work

• Opportunities to connect and learn from professionals from different backgrounds and with different cultures

Benefits Information:

Cherry Bekaert cares about our people. We offer competitive compensation packages based on performance that recognize the value our people bring to our clients and our Firm. The salary range for this position is included below. Individual salaries within this range are determined by a variety of factors including but not limited to the role, function and associated responsibilities, a candidate's work experience, education, knowledge, skills, and geographic location. In addition, we offer a comprehensive, high-quality benefits program which includes annual bonus, medical, dental, and vision care; disability and life insurance; generous Paid Time Off; retirement plans; Paid Care Leave; and other programs that are dedicated to enhancing your personal and work life and providing you and your family with a measure of financial protection.

Pay Range:

About Cherry Bekaert

Cherry Bekaert, ranked among the largest assurance, tax and advisory firms in the U.S., serves clients across industries in all 50 U.S. states and internationally. For more details, visit https://www.cbh.com/disclosure/

Cherry Bekaert provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, citizenship status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other category protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. https://careers.cbh.com/legal-disclosures/ contains further information regarding the firm's compliance with federal, state and local recruitment and hiring laws.

This role is expected to accept applications for at least five calendar days and may continue to be posted until a qualified applicant is selected or the position has been cancelled.

Candidates must demonstrate eligibility to work in the United States.Cherry Bekaert will not provideworksponsorship for this position.

Cherry Bekaert LLP and Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC are members of Allinial Global, an accountancy and business advisory global association. Visit us athttps://careers.cbh.com/ and follow us onLinkedIn,Instagram, Twitterand Facebook.

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