Applied AI Lead - Evaluation & Measurement

Job ID: 115203

The Leonardo DRS Airborne and Intelligence Systems business is a global leader and strategic partner committed to delivering world-class, full life-cycle defense and intelligence products that protect the security of our nation and our allies. From air combat training to state-of-the-art electronic warfare systems, our technology is deployed by virtually all U.S. military and government agencies around the world.

This is a hybrid position open to candidates who reside in or near Beavercreek, Ohio; Frederick, Maryland; or Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Job Summary

Prove AI works. Prove what it's worth.

We've used AI before, now we treat it as a first-class citizen at Airborne & Intelligence Systems (AIS). We build and deploy AI across signals intelligence, electronic warfare, air combat training, and the mission systems that connect them. This work shows up on our floor, in the field, and on the company's P&L, while meeting the demanding standards of our defense and commercial customers. If you want your work and your talent to count — this is the place.

Two questions follow every AI system we build: does it actually work, reliably on real jobs and is it actually worth the money we say it is? You own both answers. You design the test every capability must pass before it can ship, and you build the measurement that turns results into honest numbers leadership can trust. You hold the line. Nothing ships until it clears your bar — no test, no launch — and you're deliberately independent from the person who builds and deploys, so the check is real. When there's pressure to over-claim a result, you're the one who holds the number honest.

At the heart of this function is a proprietary platform, the encoded way this business does AI. It takes any employee from a rough idea to a governed, well-formed use case, checks it against the rules, and prepares a recommendation a human decision-maker rules on. You don't just use it; you also build it. The quality bar and measurement logic you design get embedded into the platform itself, so the standard travels with the system to every team that touches it. You encode the acceptance standard and the value math once, and every team inherits both.

This is a high impact, founding individual-contributor seat within the technical core of AI Excellence function with meaningful end to end work ownership. You report directly to top leadership of the function giving you outsize visibility, opportunity for personal growth and direct line to impact. Your peers will be AI leads for Solutions & Delivery/ Infrastructure & Deployment

Job Responsibilities

Primary & Essential Accountabilities

• Define “good enough to ship.” Design the evaluation for each capability — baseline, acceptance criteria, error budget, human-review points — documented before launch. Gate the launch.

• Build the measurement. Stand up the pipelines and record keeping that track what each capability actually delivers.

• Establish the truth. Connect each measurement directly to the source system that holds the ground truth.

• Define what deployed systems must log. Set the trace and telemetry standard that keeps every shipped capability diagnosable and auditable.

• Produce the numbers. Deliver the monthly and quarterly results — forecast versus actual, clean and without double-counting — that the function defends to Finance.

• Keep the front door open. Run the record intake so every AI idea is captured, and nothing happens off the books.

• Scope boundaries. You are not the claim owner, governance or reporting. You build the instrument that proves or disproves the claims in an auditable manner.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in data, ML, or test engineering (regardless of total years exp), including 3+ years in evaluation or model validation, with recent hands-on large-language-model evaluation work.

• Demonstrated bi-directional evaluation rigor : an example where your evaluation stopped something from shipping, and one where it cleared something others doubted. Expect us to probe the methodology of each.

• Built a measurement practice where none existed. The first baselines, the first pipelines, the first dashboard leadership actually used, and it kept producing after you handed it off.

• Data and measurement instrumentation skills: pipelines, dashboards, record-keeping, baselines from source-of-record data.

• A demonstrated record of professional integrity under pressure: you have told someone, especially seniors “the number doesn’t support that claim” and held.

• Bachelor’s degree and 5 years experience or equivalent combination of both. Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, or a related technical field is preferred

• Five years of relevant experience (or an equivalent combination of experience and training that provides the requiredknowledge, skills, and abilities

• Proficient technical expertise with demonstrated application

• Excellent interpersonal, leadership, negotiation, communication and writing skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience wiring metrics to operational systems of record (not survey- or estimate-based measurement).

• Statistical literacy for probabilistic acceptance: error budgets, confidence bounds, claims that survive challenge.

• Finance-adjacent exposure: cost accounting, benefits realization, or audit (a plus, not a requirement).

• Defense cost-accounting context.

• Active or prior security clearance.

U.S. Citizenship required. This position requires an active DOD security clearance or the ability to obtain such clearance within a reasonable time after commencement of employment.

Taking care of our people is a top priority at Leonardo DRS. We are proud to offer competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, a company contribution to a health savings account, telemedicine, life and disability insurance, legal insurance, and a 401(k) savings plan. We champion wellness programs that focus on physical, emotional, and financial well-being. We develop our talent by offering programs and activities to support career-growth, professional development, and skill enhancement. And we understand there is more to life than work, and the importance of offering flexible work schedules with our 9/80 program, competitive vacation, health/emergency leave, paid parental leave, and community service hours.

*Some employees are eligible for limited benefits only

Leonardo DRS, Inc. and its subsidiaries provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. #AIS