AI/ML Engineering Intern at Tyto Athene, LLC in Reston, VA

Summary: Tyto Athene, LLC is focused on building practical AI systems for the Department of Defense and federal agencies. The AI/ML Engineering Intern will work on real TALON projects involving edge AI, sensor fusion, and autonomous systems, collaborating closely with senior engineers to deliver impactful results. Responsibilities: - Fine-tuning small models for on-device inference in bandwidth-limited environments - Building agentic workflows for SOC triage and network analysis - Prototyping multi-modal sensor fusion (RF, imagery, telemetry) - Optimizing and quantizing models for edge hardware - Integrating LLMs into operational prototypes with real latency and memory constraints - Setting up MLOps: experiment tracking, model versioning, eval harnesses Required Qualifications: - Pursuing a degree in CS, CE, EE, or similar—and you like building systems, not just training models - You've built something real with an LLM, CV pipeline, or embedded ML—and can talk about what broke - Comfortable in Python and understand what happens under the hood - You know why transformers work, not just how to use them - US citizen, able to obtain a DoD security clearance Preferred Qualifications: - Quantization, pruning, or model optimization experience - Hands-on with open-source LLMs or fine-tuning tools (Unsloth, Axolotl, etc.) - RAG pipelines, tool-use agents, or agentic frameworks - Docker/Kubernetes or serverless GPU platforms - ETL/ELT pipelines using Python or SQL - RF or signal processing background - Exposure to DoD or government environments Required Skills: Python, Model optimization, LLM experience Important Skills: Sensor fusion, Docker/Kubernetes, ETL/ELT pipelines Nice-to-Have Skills: Signal processing Benefits: Mentorship from senior engineers building production AI for national security, Access to serious hardware—and the freedom to use it, Real deployment experience under real constraints (power, bandwidth, latency, security)