Lead Data Scientist - Knowledge Retrieval

Company Description Govini transforms Defense Acquisition from an outdated manual process to a software-driven strategic advantage for the United States. Our flagship product, Ark, supports Supply Chain, Science & Technology, Production, Sustainment, Logistics, and Modernization teams with AI-enabled Applications and best-in-class data to more rapidly imagine, develop, and field the capabilities we need. Today, the national security community and every branch of the military rely on Govini to enable faster and more informed Acquisition decisions. Job Description The Lead Data Scientist will provide visionary technical leadership to a team of data scientists and AI engineers, driving the end-to-end development and deployment of cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence solutions for our National Security clientele. This crucial position is key to building a strong culture of advanced agentic search, deep research, retrieval, and AI, and to creating scalable AI platforms for the wider AI and Data Science community. As a hands-on technical leader, you will apply deep expertise in Artificial Intelligence and a keen understanding of complex Defense Acquisition challenges. Your primary focus will be to work with our proprietary and commercial datasets to find critical connections, derive actionable knowledge, and identify potential issues that help our government clients make more informed decisions. This involves designing, developing, and rapidly deploying scalable AI solutions that transform these insights into mission-critical capabilities. You will also have the opportunity to expand and grow data-driven research across Govini, leading new areas to apply advanced analytics to drive strategic business and national security results. You will build and lead the development of advanced agentic search, knowledge retrieval, and deep research systems. These systems are designed to provide deep conversational knowledge explorations, robust problem solving, accurate question answering, and a suite of other search, recommendation, and discovery capabilities, transforming proprietary and commercial datasets into mission-critical insights. To excel in this position, you must be an AI expert with a strong command of data science fundamentals and a proven ability to bring data-driven solutions to life within the defense ecosystem. The ideal candidate is a highly organized problem-solver who possesses excellent oral and written communication skills, capable of translating complex AI concepts for both technical and non-technical audiences. You must be independent, driven, and motivated to jump in and roll up your sleeves to get the job done. You lead by influence and motivation, demonstrating a passion for great work and an intolerance for mediocrity. We seek an uber-smart, creative, out-of-the-box thinker who is challenged by complex defense problems and obsessed with quality and rapid prototyping/deployment, knowing how to engage in constructive dialogue to find the best path forward This role is a full-time position located out of our office in Pittsburgh, PA.  This role may require up to 10% travel Scope of Responsibilities Drive the architecture and development of the 'Ark Brain,' a complex, multi-modal intelligent agent system for knowledge retrieval and deep research, serving as the central nervous architecture for powering agentic AI search, deep research, RAG, and knowledge graph systems across The Ark's platforms. Define the multi-year technical roadmap for AI initiatives, turning vague business challenges into concrete, scalable research and product goals. Raise the collective bar by mentoring Senior-level engineers and building high-performing teams that consistently deliver state-of-the-art (SOTA) results. Drive consensus across disparate groups such as DS and AI, Product, Forward Deployed AI and Engineering, to ensure AI deployments are technically sound, commercially viable, and responsible. Act as the authority on scientific breakthroughs and model strategy, ensuring that core architectures, training methodologies, and data ecosystems are robust, cost-effective, and future-proofed against the rapidly evolving AI landscape Lead the end-to-end execution of large-scale AI projects, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and timely delivery. Lead the development of advanced agentic search, knowledge retrieval, and deep research systems. Drive the expansion of data-driven research and advanced analytics for strategic business and national security results. Design and deploy Agentic AI systems capable of deep conversational knowledge explorations, robust problem solving, and accurate question answering from proprietary datasets. Act as the primary Individual Contributor (IC) and technical lead for complex AI/ML/DS projects, taking deep ownership from ideation to production deployment. Serve as the domain expert in AI Search Science  (ranking, query understanding, agentic search, deep r