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Forward Deployed Data Scientist

Air

Pittsburgh, PA • 10/20/2026

Information Technology , Professional

Job Description

Job Description
Company Description
Air is the leader in Enterprise Readiness. Our mission is to establish readiness as a real-time condition that is continuously achieved. Today, a dangerous Readiness Gap exists between what the front line needs and what is delivered. Our AI-native platform, Air Enterprise Readiness, aligns development, production, delivery, and sustainment into one coordinated execution system for government agencies and industrial suppliers. By revealing true capacity, exposing real constraints, coordinating resources, and executing at the speed of operational demands, the front line gets what it needs to succeed.
Job Description

We are seeking inquisitive, customer-value-oriented data scientists to join our Forward Deployed team. In this role you will leverage a myriad of skills including statistical modeling, machine learning, and AI to drive outcomes from our customers. You are motivated by moving quickly but responsibly against urgent and compelling opportunities to deliver valuable outcomes to our customers. The idea of building something new energizes you. You want to work on problems that matter, and you want to own solutions. You understand and appreciate the value of face-to-face interactions with end users, and constantly seek to push the boundaries of what is possible.

In order to do this job well, you must be a highly organized problem-solver and possess excellent oral and written communication skills, capable of translating complex AI concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences. You are independent, driven, and motivated to jump in and roll up your sleeves to get the job done. You must possess exceptional judgment when it comes to balancing competing priorities and making tradeoffs. You must be flexible, you must value outcomes over process, you must thrive in ambiguous environments, and above all else focus on solving valuable problems for our customers.

In a typical week, the individual who fills this position could expect to:

  • Spend the day onsite with users, listening to problems and asking questions seeking to understand pain points
  • Collaborate with software engineers, implementation engineers, and designers to scope, architect, and deliver 0-to-1 product initiatives and prototypes.
  • Build and deliver working, customer-facing prototypes.
  • Assess, prioritize, and correct the most important gaps in prototype solutions under development based on user feedback and in partnership with product managers
  • Fail often, iterate quickly, and try again

This role is a full-time position located out of our office in Arlington, VA, Pittsburgh, PA, or Remote.

This role may require up to 60% travel.

Scope of Responsibilities
  • Conduct customer site visits to diagnose and understand pain points
  • Translating vague customer needs into concrete AI workflows and data science solutions
  • Developing new AI and data science solutions and using existing ones to solve customer problems
  • Rapid prototyping of AI models, systems, heuristics, and agentic solutions
  • Evaluating solution effectiveness with customers, tuning, and redefining solutions when needed
  • Taking end-to-end ownership of client problems
  • Working with cross-functional forward deployed teams to build end-to-end solutions in production deployments
  • Collaborating with AI platform and agentic AI teams to generalize capabilities into reusable agentic AI features/skills for other deployments
  • Wrapping AI/DS solutions into AI agentic/skills frameworks
  • Craft clean, testable, and maintainable code
Qualifications
  • U.S. Citizenship is required
Required Skills:
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, or related field, or equivalent work experience
  • 1+ years of delivering data science, machine learning or AI solutions into a production software system
  • Ability to translate customer problems into technical AI requirements
  • Experience in integrating AI/DS solutions into agentic frameworks.
  • End-to-end ownership of client problems.
  • Ability to work independently with little supervision
  • Strong communication with non-technical users and technical users.
  • Collaboration with cross-functional teams for production deployment.
  • A burning desire to work in a challenging, fast-paced tech environment

Desired Skills:

  • Current possession of a U.S. security clearance or the ability to obtain one with our sponsorship
  • Experience in or exposure to the nuances of a startup or other entrepreneurial environment
  • Experience working within the boundaries of a federally accredited software environment
  • Experience working in a customer-facing or consulting role
We firmly believe that past performance is the best indicator of future performance. If you thrive while building solutions to complex problems, are a self-starter, and are passionate about making an impact in global security, we're eager to hear from you.
Air is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans status or any other characteristic protected by law.