Senior AI Developer IT Assistant Director II

Introduction

The Maryland State Department of Education is dedicated to supporting a world-class educational system that prepares all students for college and career success in the 21st century. With excellent stewardship from our divisions, we oversee State and federal programs that support the needs of a diverse population – students, teachers, principals, and other educators throughout Maryland.

GRADE

23

LOCATION OF POSITION

Nancy S. Grasmick Education Building

Baltimore, MD 21201

(Hybrid eligible; on-call availability required for production deployments and critical incidents; Global Protect VPN required for all MSDE system access)

Main Purpose of Job

This contractual position is the senior AI developer and subject matter expert within the Information Technology Branch (ITB) of the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), reporting to the IT Partner. The incumbent designs, builds, and maintains AI-powered applications supporting MSDE’s operational and programmatic needs - ultimately in service of improving outcomes for Maryland’s children, families, schools, and the programs that serve them. They bring the enterprise software development and applied AI expertise that anchors ITB’s growing AI program, working as a core technical member of a collaborative team that includes the IT Partner, the Director of IT Infrastructure, the MSDE CISO, the Privacy Officer, the Accessibility Section, DoIT, and MSDE program offices. This is a founding role. The incumbent helps establish the development standards, architectural patterns, and governance framework ITB’s AI program will operate under - while remaining comfortable working quickly in a low-maturity environment where those structures are still being built. They use AI tools to accelerate their own development work and bring the judgment to validate what those tools produce. Successful performance in this role requires someone who is adaptive, self-directed, and equally effective working independently and as a contributing member of a team. The incumbent operates with significant technical autonomy while staying closely aligned with the IT Partner, program offices, and ITB leadership on direction and priorities. All work must align with Maryland cybersecurity law (COMAR 14.41), DoIT security and AI governance policies, MSDE data governance and privacy policies, Maryland state AI standards, and FERPA.

POSITION DUTIES

• Design, build, maintain, and enhance ITB’s AI-powered applications across the full lifecycle: requirements through deployment and ongoing operation.
• Write production-quality application code; maintain and extend existing Python codebases.
• Use AI-assisted development tools to accelerate work; apply the judgment and experience to validate what those tools produce.