AI Systems Engineer (Aerospace Integrations) (Remote: DC or Philly Metro)

ABOUT ELEMENT 84 Element 84 is a woman-owned small business that works with public, private, and non-profit sector clients to develop geospatial data processing pipelines & build software that helps answer big questions about our health, our infrastructure, and our changing planet. We solve challenging problems across a wide range of industries, but our super power is cloud-based geospatial data processing, remote sensing, and Earth science systems. Our headquarters is located in Alexandria, VA and we have a satellite office in Philadelphia, PA. Element 84 also supports a large remote workforce from a variety of other states. A FEW OTHER THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW 1. Element 84's values are: We Invest in Each Other, We are Reliable, and Our Work Benefits our World. 2. Element 84 works on meaningful projects that are challenging—from a technical, people, and team perspective. We make an impact on large projects through our leadership and expertise, both formal and informal. 3. Element 84 values life outside of work. We offer parental leave for everyone and support each other through family challenges like medical problems, adoptions, and new babies. 4. Element 84 has had a flexible work schedule since our founding in 2010. 5. Element 84 is committed to fostering a culture of curiosity and respect for all individuals as we constantly strive to create a work environment where everyone feels welcome and supported. ABOUT YOU You are curious about the world, are constantly learning, driven to lead (formally or informally), and have a strong work ethic. You're interested in solving impactful problems in science, medicine, and other projects that have a societal good. You can work independently or with a team, prioritize your projects, and be effective without micromanagement. You'll care about writing. Our team is remote and written communication is essential. In addition to caring about a well-crafted email and a succinct conference abstract, you understand that good writing is good design and engineering. ROLE OVERVIEW As an AI Systems Engineer, you will design and build the multi-agent systems that power NASA's Text-to-Spaceship initiative, an AI pipeline that converts natural language mission requirements into validated spacecraft component designs. You won't just be "calling an API"; you will be architecting and building autonomous agentic workflows that orchestrate heterogeneous AI techniques (LLMs, reinforcement learning, RAG, uncertainty quantification), building integrations with engineering tools (CAD, FEA, CAM), and deploying scalable infrastructure on AWS. Your goal is to turn science objectives into manufacturable hardware designs through reliable, AI-driven automation. As our AI Domain Expert, you will bridge the gap between generative AI and physical reality. You will be responsible for ensuring that our text-to-spaceship pipeline generates physically viable, safe, and manufacturable spacecraft components. You will translate complex physics, NASA standards, and aerospace load cases into programmatic guardrails for our multi-agent systems, ensuring our AI generates structurally sound flight hardware. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Physics-Informed AI Constraints: Translate physical constraints (mass, thermal envelopes, radiation shielding, vibro-acoustics) and mechanical properties into prompt contexts, structured outputs, and agent guardrails. - Automated CAE & FEA Workflows: Design and implement programmatic workflows for Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) that the AI agents can autonomously trigger to validate their own designs. - Domain Validation & Ground Truth: Serve as the human-in-the-loop expert to vet AI-generated structural designs, identifying edge cases, hallucinated physics, or impractical geometries, and using those insights to improve the agentic evaluation framework. - Multi-Agent Architecture: Design and implement agentic frameworks where a lead orchestrator agent coordinates spe…