---
title: 'Machine Learning Engineer at CoVar'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-covar-mclean-k6gerwpesfw2'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Machine Learning Engineer at CoVar

- **Company:** CoVar
- **Location:** Mclean, VA
- **Posted:** 2026-03-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/covar/jobs/5070401007

## Job description

Machine Learning Engineer

Location: McLean, VA (hybrid); occasional travel to Durham, NC and customer sites

## About CoVar

CoVar is a small AI/ML R&D software company with offices in Durham, NC and McLean, VA, that uses artificial intelligence to solve problems that matter. Our teams build AI/ML solutions that help the DoD detect enemies and threats, help biomedical researchers find new cures, and help monitor machinery to prevent injuries and environmental catastrophes. We are passionate engineers dedicated to pushing the bounds of what AI/ML can do in the real world.

## About the Role

We’re seeking a Senior ML Engineer (Technical Lead) with deep hands-on expertise in machine learning and computer vision, who can also lead DoD-focused programs, own customer engagement, contribute to business development, and help grow and manage a local engineering team in McLean over time. You’ll lead end-to-end technical delivery – from data to deployment – while serving as the primary technical point of contact for our customers.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building production-grade ML systems, mentoring engineers, and translating complex technical work into compelling customer outcomes.

What You’ll Do

- Lead programs end-to-end: Scope requirements, set technical strategy and milestones, plan resourcing, manage risks, and deliver results for DoD-focused ML/CV projects.
- Own customer relationships: Run technical discussions, requirement discovery, demos, standing meetings, and briefings with senior stakeholders; turn feedback into clear roadmaps.
- Stay deeply hands-on (50–70%):
- Build data pipelines, train/evaluate CV models, and write production code.
- Design, train, and optimize detection/segmentation/tracking models and custom computer-vision pipelines; handle imbalanced data, domain shift, and real-world constraints.
- Deploy models to production (typically on the edge), instrument for monitoring, and iterate with CI/CD.
- Contribute to business development: Write technical sections of proposals/white papers, help shape capture strategy, provide level-of-effort estimates, and present prototypes.
- Communicate and publish: Present results to high-level DoD and industry customers; author technical reports; publish novel work in classified/unclassified settings when applicable.

## Minimum Qualifications

- Experience: 5+ years designing, building, and deploying machine learning systems in production (8+ preferred). Strong track record leading technical delivery for complex projects.
- ML/CV expertise:
- Deep understanding of ML fundamentals (e.g., gradient descent, cross-validation, ROC/PR curves, confusion matrices, mAP).
- Computer vision experience with modern architectures (e.g., YOLO family, CenterNet, RetinaNet, Detectron2, ViTs, segmentation networks), augmentation strategies, and evaluation.
- Experience with data curation/annotation workflows and dataset quality control.
- Software engineering: Python (NumPy, scipy, pandas/polars), PyTorch (preferred) or TensorFlow, git, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and code quality practices.
- MLOps & deployment: Experiment tracking, Docker, ONNX/TensorRT, deploying inference services to the edge (e.g., NVIDIA Jetson).
- Communication & leadership: Excellent technical communication, customer-facing experience, and proven ability to lead cross-functional efforts.
- Education: B.S. in engineering, math, computer science, or related field; M.S./Ph.D. preferred.
- Clearance: Eligibility for U.S. security clearance. This requires U.S. citizenship.

## Preferred Qualifications (Bonus)

- Prior Department of Defense project experience, including briefing senior stakeholders and navigating DoD acquisition processes.
- Active Secret or TS/SCI clearance; experience working in classified environments.
- Experience managing or mentoring engineers; contributing to hiring and performance development.
- Experience with proposal writing (SBIR/STTR, RFPs), technical volume authorship, and live demos.
- Experience with multi-sensor fusion, signal-processing, tracking, synthetic data generation, domain adaptation, or semi/active learning for data-limited environments.
- Familiarity with edge hardware optimization, and performance profiling.
- Open-source contributions, publications, or patents in ML/CV.

## Why This Role Matters

You’ll be a key technical leader in our McLean office – setting technical direction, building a local team, and ensuring our DoD partners see tangible mission impact from AI/ML solutions. If you thrive in high-impact environments where you can both build and lead, we’d love to talk.

## Benefits

- Competitive salary, cash bonus, equity structure, and 401k with employer contributions
- Excellent health care coverage, including dental and vision plans
- Parental leave
- Short-term and long-term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Flexible work schedule
- Tuition support
- PTO and paid holidays

Visit us: www.covar.com

## About CoVar

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: CoVar is a small AI/ML R&D software company that creates customized algorithms and decision-support tools for defense, healthcare, and industrial applications.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Bootstrapped; no public funding rounds disclosed)
- **Headquarters**: Durham, North Carolina, United States (with additional office in McLean, Virginia)
- **Founded**: 2011
- **Founders**: Mark Hibbard and Martin Milner; expanded through acquisition of New Folder Consulting (2013) with Dr. Peter Torrione and Dr. Kenneth D. Morton, Jr. as chief technologists.

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Defense & Space, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Aided Target Recognition
- **Target customers**: U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), biomedical researchers, industrial operators (B2G/B2B)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Deliver more than cutting-edge technology – a one-of-a-kind company that delivers unique smart sensing and automation solutions to our clients.”

## Products & Services
For each major offering:
- **ODIN**: AI-powered decision support tool that turns battlefield data into real-time, actionable insight on friendly forces, adversary activity, ISR coverage, and mission progress.
- **ACES**: Multi-tiered automatic target recognition (ATR) software with patented algorithms for detecting tiny unresolved distant targets, mid-range objects, and providing targeting information.
- **BullsEye**: Software architecture that decouples mission capability from specific airframes and payloads, enabling rapid AI-powered ISR upgrades via software updates.
- **ATLAS (Advanced Targeting & Lethality Aided System)**: Custom machine learning algorithms for detecting threats in infrared and RGB imagery at extreme distances, developed for the U.S. Army.
- **Custom AI/ML Solutions**: Tailored algorithms for defense, healthcare (e.g., disease cure discovery), and industrial monitoring (e.g., machinery to prevent injuries and environmental catastrophes).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (privately held)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding not disclosed; revenue not publicly available. Notable contract: Direct-to-Phase II SBIR from the U.S. Air Force and a DARPA contract for Predictive Psychological Architectures for Decision-Making (PPADM) program (announced April 2026).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: No external investors reported. Key partners include DARPA, U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and biomedical research institutions.
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount grew 25.8% YoY (26 employees as of mid-2026); LinkedIn followers increased 71% year-over-year; active job postings grew 50% quarterly; DARPA and SBIR contract wins signal expanding government trust.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Specific moats or differentiators**: Over a decade of experience in custom AI/ML for defense; patented algorithms for aided target recognition at extreme distances; ability to decouple software from hardware (BullsEye); deep relationships with DoD and DARPA; small, agile team with high technical expertise (51% of staff in technical roles).

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities and direction for growth**: Continue expanding AI/ML solutions for defense (especially real-time battlefield decision support and autonomous target recognition), while growing healthcare and industrial monitoring applications. Emphasis on software-driven upgrades over hardware replacement.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlights**: Small, tight-knit team of engineers and scientists; values integrity, creativity, dependability, and diversity; passionate about solving serious problems with cutting-edge technology.
- **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: Flexible work schedule; likely on-site/hybrid given defense contracts (offices in Durham, NC and McLean, VA).
- **Notable perks or engineering culture**: Competitive salary, cash bonus, equity structure, 401k with employer contributions; excellent health/dental/vision plans; opportunity to work on high-impact national security and biomedical projects; constant experimentation and prototyping at the edge of AI/ML.

## Sources
1. [covar.com](https://covar.com/) – Homepage and technology areas
2. [covar.com/about-us](https://covar.com/about-us/) – About Us (history, values)
3. [covar.com/careers-local](https://covar.com/careers-local/) – Careers page (benefits, culture)
4. [linkedin.com/company/covar-llc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/covar-llc) – Company details, workforce, growth
5. [theorg.com/org/covar](https://theorg.com/org/covar) – Org chart, team structure

## Other roles at CoVar

- [Field Operations Advisor, Army Programs](https://feeny.ai/job/field-operations-advisor-army-programs-covar-durham-ebwx57vydvn3) — Durham, NC
- [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-covar-durham-e0xnxda82mcn) — Durham, NC
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-covar-durham-ar0hdvxt0jdh) — Durham, NC
- [Signal Processing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/signal-processing-engineer-covar-durham-xqaedd0ghr6t) — Durham, NC
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-gatik-ai-santa-clara-qj4vvbdeqt4x) — Santa Clara, CA
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-wynd-labs-remote-whe42v314npy)
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-blissway-inc-denver-x6g0dsrp5q6v) — Denver, CO
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-blissway-inc-denver-gy2xqv8xdt4a) — Denver, CO
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-nt-concepts-chantilly-1sxzj9e9jpxf) — Chantilly, VA
- [Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/machine-learning-engineer-witness-ai-bay-area-p29j1tnrbe34) — Bay Area