Backend Application Engineer Jobs in Minnesota (NOW HIRING)

Strategic Innovation Group (SIG) is seeking a Cloud/AI Engineer to design, develop, and deploy secure, scalable cloud-native and artificial intelligence solutions supporting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs. This role serves as a senior technical leader responsible for modernizing legacy systems, architecting enterprise cloud platforms, developing production-grade AI applications, and implementing Generative AI capabilities including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and agentic AI solutions. The successful candidate will collaborate closely with government stakeholders, product teams, and engineering staff to deliver innovative, mission-critical technologies that improve operational efficiency, enable data-driven decision-making, and advance the FAA's digital transformation initiatives while meeting stringent security, compliance, and governance requirements.

SIG is a fast growing 8(a) government contractor based in Arlington, Virginia. We offer a broad range of technical expertise and experience in Digital Transformation, Data Management/Data Science, and Systems Modernization. At SIG, our people are our mission. Come join our team!

Benefits and Location

• Greatwork/life balance
• Eligibilityforperformance-basedparticipationincashbonuses
• Potential toparticipatein growth of the company through incentives
• Excellent benefits,includinghealth, dental, vision,generousPTO, a 401(k) with match, life insurance, short- and long-term disability,anda health savings account (HSA)

Additionally, this position is expected to be generally remote, with occasional visits to the office and client facilities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area as needed.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following:

• Lead the design, development, deployment, and sustainment of secure, scalable cloud and AI solutions supporting FAA mission objectives.
• Collaborate with government stakeholders to translate business requirements into innovative, mission-focused technology solutions.
• Lead the modernization of legacy systems and enterprise platforms through cloud transformation and application modernization initiatives.
• Establish and promote architecture, engineering, security, and software development best practices across project teams.
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and guidance to engineering teams while supporting Agile project delivery.
• Ensure solutions meet federal security, governance, compliance, and operational requirements throughout the system lifecycle.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, architecture artifacts, and implementation plans to support operations and compliance.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, resolve complex technical challenges, and recommend improvements that enhance performance, reliability, and mission outcomes.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Cloud Engineer experience: 20+ years
• AI Engineer experience: 3+ years
• Experience delivering enterprise-scale technology solutions across public-sector and private-sector organizations, including highly ambiguous environments requiring problem discovery, requirements definition, and solution development.
• Hands-on experience in cloud engineering, cloud-based application development, and full stack software engineering.
• Proven track record designing, building, deploying, and operating production-grade applications spanning front-end interfaces, backend services, and cloud data platforms.
• Experience migrating legacy on-premises systems to the cloud and refactoring monolithic legacy codebases into microservices architectures and cloud-native tooling, using Docker, Kubernetes, serverless services, and cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Experience leading or executing migrations from on-premises data warehouses to cloud-based data warehouse platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Azure Synapse), including data pipeline redesign, schema conversion, and validation of data integrity throughout the migration.
• Strong proficiency in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, FastAPI, SQL, Spark/PySpark, REST APIs, and modern software development frameworks.
• Expertise implementing CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, infrastructure automation (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation), and platform engineering principles to support scalable cloud delivery.
• Experience integrating enterprise systems through APIs, event-driven architectures, workflow orchestration platforms, and distributed services.
  Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, distributed systems, cloud architecture, and cloud application engineering best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to architect secure, scalable, and resilient cloud systems with attention to governance, auditability, data protection, and access controls.
• Hands-on experience developing and deploying Generative AI solutions, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), agentic AI systems, semantic search, and vector databases, integrated into cloud-native application architectures.
• Experience managing the AI application lifecycle within cloud environments, including data ingestion, model integration, deployment, monitoring, observability, and continuous improvement using cloud-native MLOps tooling.
• Proven ability to collaborate with business stakeholders, product teams, and technical leadership to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions and AI-enabled products.
• Experience delivering mission-critical applications in regulated, compliance-sensitive, or enterprise environments.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and systems-thinking skills with the ability to identify operational challenges and develop technology solutions that deliver measurable business value.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS

• Prior experience in federal contracting or highly regulated enterprise environments.
• Active FAA clearance

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS/SECURITY CLEARANCE

Must have ability to obtain a Public Trust clearance