Principal Developer (AI Safety) Remote From Anywhere In CO

About the role

Together, we innovate for a stronger Colorado

The work of employees at the Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT) is challenging and diverse because the needs of agencies, customers and Coloradans constantly evolve. But our focus never changes: improve the lives of all Coloradans through innovation and collaboration. We're building one of the nation's leading government IT organizations by reimagining how we support agencies, building first-of-their-kind applications, and creating an inclusive, collaborative culture, together. Join us in the important work of providing equitable access to services.

Watch this video to learn more about how we're Serving People. Serving Colorado.

Term Limited Position

This position is term-limited with an anticipated end date of approximately three (3) years from the date of hire, with a strong probability of a 2-year extension. This position is eligible for State employee benefits and may be extended as the situation warrants. Thisvideo explains the many benefits of working at the State of Colorado on a term-limited basis.

Important Note

Please review your application to ensure completion. For the most equitable applicant experience, OIT’s hiring team considers only the contents of your application to review your qualifications. Please do not include any attachments (such as resume or cover letter) with your application as these items are not used by OIT’s hiring team.

The AI Safety Principal Developer will build the technical infrastructure we need to operationalize responsible AI. In this full-stack role, you will lead technical design, application build and release processes, and cross-functional engagement while ensuring accessibility, security, and high quality across all digital products.

This role has responsibilities across the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), from business requirements through operational support, with a primary focus on development activities. If vendor teams are brought on to assist with some builds, the Principal Developer is also expected to provide technical leadership.

The majority of the AI Safety Principal Developer’s time will be focused on developing and supporting the Responsible AI Layer (RAIL). RAIL will be the State of Colorado’s large language model (LLM) technical guardrails platform that enables more secure, effective deployment of LLM-based applications. The platform will:

• Streamline automatic masking of protected data before inference
• Run a battery of AI safety and bias tests to assess whether adequate controls are in place
• Enable domain experts to create and run on an automated schedule, application-specific benchmarks to regularly evaluate accuracy and reliability
• Be directly integrated with custom LLM applications
• Be used to also test and monitor Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) LLM applications, even if not through direct integrations

In addition, the AI Safety Principal Developer will own other technical responsibilities for the AI team including:

• Automating a user access provisioning pipeline for enterprise AI tools
• Implementing a self-service tool to streamline pre-procurement risk reviews of AI products
• Working closely with OIT’s Engineering Practice Lead to create and maintain shared technical resources that practitioners can use without starting from scratch, such as skills for AI code tools and model architectures for common AI use cases.
• Working closely with OIT’s cloud and platform teams (AWS, GCP, Snowflake) to leverage existing shared platforms and diffuse AI implementation expertise across OIT’s technical teams.

Essential Functions

• Translate vision and strategy into sustainable initiatives that produce measurable improvements in the State’s maturity regarding responsible AI deployments.
• Work with the service designer, governance and evaluation manager, and other key stakeholders to design and build enterprise AI infrastructure that accelerates the ability for agency pods and OIT internal teams to pilot, test, and deploy AI-enabled products.
• This is full-stack development for in-house applications and configuration management for Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) applications in accordance with standards and best practices.
• Includes coordinating update releases and system changes, contributing to break/fix solutions, and updating technical documentation and configuration details throughout the application lifecycle.
• Includes ensuring compliance with digital accessibility regulations and requirements by building accessible digital products.
• Diffuse best practices for embedding AI functionality into products across OIT’s engineering workforce, including vendors.
• Provide technical assistance to colleagues exploring how to effectively leverage AI within their functions.

Additional information

This role is dynamic; as the AI landscape evolves, specific responsibilities may shift to meet the changing needs of the State.

This individual contributor position offers high autonomy and high accountability. This role sits within a purposefully "small but mighty" AI team with a unique goal: to diffuse AI competency across all of OIT so that, within 3-5 years, AI becomes "normal" technology and a standalone AI team is no longer needed. You will be a trusted thought partner to executive leadership, helping cultivate the culture, practices, and infrastructure to ensure AI delivers real value for Coloradans.

Pay and benefits

A wide salary range is posted for this position and any job offer is based upon a salary analysis to comply with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act. The salary analysis considers relevant experience, education, certifications, and state seniority as compared to others doing substantially similar work. While all offers are compliant with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, there is no guarantee an offer will be at the top of the posted range based on the salary analysis.

This is a skills-based job announcement. The required minimum qualifications and/or education (if substituting for the proven experience, knowledge, and skills), are as follows:

Minimum Qualifications

• At least one (1) year of experience working consistently with generative AI models, including leveraging coding assistant tools with clear human ownership (not vibe coding without human review of the resulting code).
• Minimum of seven (7) years of experience as a hands-on software developer for agile software application and platform development, including authentication, front-end development, system integrations, data handling, API development, and automated testing.
• Cloud-based full-stack experience, with a passion for making front-end designs user-friendly and architecting back-ends as simple as possible to meet the needs.
• Experience applying digital accessibility regulations and standards (e.g., WCAG 2.1) to business processes, content, tools, and/or documents, with the ability to provide specific examples of accessibility improvements made

Substitutions

• Additional appropriate education will substitute for the required experience on a year-for-year basis, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications.
• Training or Certification related to the work assigned to the position will be assigned credit towards substitution for experience and/or education, but cannot completely substitute for these qualifications.
• If the minimum qualifications include a degree requirement, additional appropriate paid or unpaid experience will substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operationalizing AI (genAI or ML) functionality in products.
• Familiarity with the unique constraints of public sector technology landscapes, including security/compliance baselines and vendor proposal assessment.
• Experience working across multidisciplinary teams (data science, engineering, policy, and operations) to ship complex technical products.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate organizational obstacles and ambiguous technical challenges to deliver functional, scalable results.
• Compelling communication, with ability to tailor messaging based on the audience, whether executives, engineers, or non-technical customers.
• Experience managing work, code, and CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps
• Experience developing in AWS environments

Conditions of Employment

• OIT employees must comply with any screening procedures in place at state agency locations where they might perform work.
• This position may require travel within the specified geographic area, and to locations across the state as needed.
• If this posting indicates “remote from anywhere in CO” in the title, periodic reporting to the primary state work location designated for the position is required. All remote work must be performed in Colorado.

While candidates from out of state will be considered for this role, the candidate selected for the position must relocate and reside in Colorado on the first day of their new position. A reasonable timeframe for relocation will be established on an individual basis, while considering business needs, and determining a start date.

• We know it's important to support each other, and that means having a healthy balance of work and personal time. Visit our benefits to learn more about some of our great offerings that allow us all to have fulfilling lives.
• Visit our How to Apply webpage to learn more about our application process and what to expect after you apply.
• This posting may be used to fill multiple vacancies based upon business need.
• The Governor's Office of Information Technology does NOT offer sponsored Visas for employment purposes.