Application Architect – DARPA SciFy Project – Penn Engineering

University Overview

The
University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation.
This historic, Ivy League school consistently ranks among the top 10 universities in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey. Penn has 12
highly-regarded schools that provide opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and continuing education, all influenced by Penn’s
distinctive interdisciplinary approach to scholarship and learning. As an employer Penn has been ranked nationally on many occasions with
the most recent award from Forbes who named Penn one of America’s Best Large Employers in 2023.

Penn offers a unique working
environment within the city of Philadelphia. The University is situated on a beautiful urban campus, with easy access to a range of
educational, cultural, and recreational activities. With its historical significance and landmarks, lively cultural offerings, and wide
variety of atmospheres, Philadelphia is the perfect place to call home for work and play.

The University offers a competitive
benefits package that includes excellent healthcare and tuition benefits for employees and their families, generous retirement benefits, a
wide variety of professional development opportunities, supportive work and family benefits, a wealth of health and wellness programs and
resources, and much more.

Posted Job Title
Application Architect – DARPA SciFy Project – Penn
Engineering

Job Profile Title
Application Architect

Job Description Summary
We are seeking
an Application Architect with expertise in NLP and large language models to lead development on the DARPA SciFy project. The University of
Pennsylvania leads a multi-university team building AI systems for automated scientific claim assessment and technology forecasting, in
partnership with Two Six Technologies. The architect will design and build the core infrastructure for ClaimSpy, our flagship claim
feasibility assessment system, extending it from verifiable materials science claims to speculative AI technology forecasting – supporting
DARPA’s “create and avoid surprise” mission.

This is a 12-month grant funded position with the possibility of an extension dependent
on continued funding.

Job Description

Job Responsibilities

• Design and build ClaimSpy’s agent
  architecture: multi-LLM pipelines with tool-calling chains for literature retrieval, computational analysis, and claim
  assessment
• Develop an interactive Claim Card interface for analysts to construct, refine, and explore structured speculative claims,
  inspect reasoning traces, and review evidence bundles
• Extend the Panel of Virtual Experts (PoVE) system to support Tech Council in a
  Box (TCBX), enabling multi-perspective deliberation over speculative AI forecasts
• Integrate Two Six Technologies’ speculative claims
  component into the ClaimSpy pipeline, including ablation studies to assess integration quality
• Instrument systems with logging,
  observability, and error tracing across tool-calling chains to support operational pilot deployments
• Collaborate with researchers on
  AutoRubric integration for automated LLM-as-judge evaluation of claim assessments
• Conform to DARPA’s testing and evaluation
  framework
• Collaborate with postdocs and graduate students to translate research prototypes into production-ready
  systems
• Assist with technical documentation, system testing, and monthly DARPA reporting
• Participate in program meetings,
  technical demonstrations, and pilot exercises with transition partners

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science
  with four to six years of substantial software development experience or an equivalent combination of education and
  experience.
• Strong Python skills and hands-on experience with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) and agent
  frameworks
• Experience building agentic systems with tool use, multi-step reasoning, and orchestration
• Experience developing
  APIs that expose LLM capabilities as services (REST/GraphQL endpoints, streaming, authentication, rate limiting)
• Experience with API
  development, system integration, and full-stack web development
• Ability to rapidly prototype and iterate in an agile research
  environment
• Strong communication skills for coordinating across a distributed team and with government
  stakeholders

Preferred

• Experience with RAG systems, vector databases, and retrieval pipelines
• Experience building
  interactive data exploration or sensemaking interfaces
• Familiarity with scientific literature processing and structured knowledge
  extraction
• Containerization and deployment (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Open source contributions
• Experience with evaluation
  frameworks, benchmarking, or LLM-as-judge pipelines
• Prior experience on government-funded research projects

Job
Location – City, State
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Department / School
School of Engineering and Applied
Science

Pay Range
$100,000.00 – $150,000.00 Annual Rate
Salary offers are made based on the candidate’s
qualifications, experience, skills, and education as they directly relate to the requirements of the position, and in alignment with salary
ranges based on external market data for the job’s level. Internal organization and peer data at Penn are also
considered.

Equal Opportunity Statement

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer.
Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including
shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable
federal, state or local law.

Special Requirements
Background checks may be required after a conditional job offer
is made. Consideration of the background check will be tailored to the requirements of the job.

University
Benefits

• Health, Life, and Flexible Spending Accounts: Penn offers comprehensive medical, prescription, behavioral
  health, dental, vision, and life insurance benefits to protect you and your family’s health and welfare. You can also use flexible spending
  accounts to pay for eligible health care and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.
• Tuition: Take advantage of Penn’s
  exceptional tuition benefits. You, your spouse, and your dependent children can get tuition assistance here at Penn. Your dependent children
  are also eligible for tuition assistance at other institutions.
• Retirement: Penn offers generous retirement plans to help you
  save for your future. Penn’s Basic, Matching, and Supplemental retirement plans allow you to save for retirement on a pre-tax or Roth basis.
  Choose from a wide variety of investment options through TIAA and Vanguard.
• Time Away from Work: Penn provides you with a
  substantial amount of time away from work during the course of the year. This allows you to relax, take vacations, attend to personal
  affairs, recover from illness or injury, spend time with family-whatever your personal needs may be.
• Long-Term Care
  Insurance: In partnership with Genworth Financial, Penn offers faculty and staff (and your eligible family members) long-term care
  insurance to help you cover some of the costs of long-term care services received at home, in the community or in a nursing facility. If you
  apply when you’re newly hired, you won’t have to provide proof of good health or be subject to underwriting requirements. Eligible family
  members must always provide proof of good health and are subject to underwriting.
• Wellness and Work-life Resources: Penn is
  committed to supporting our faculty and staff as they balance the competing demands of work and personal life. That’s why we offer a wide
  variety of programs and resources to help you care for your health, your family, and your work-life balance.
• Professional and
  Personal Development: Penn provides an array of resources to help you advance yourself personally and
  professionally.
• University Resources: As a member of the Penn community, you have access to a wide range of University
  resources as well as cultural and recreational activities. Take advantage of the University’s libraries and athletic facilities, or visit
  our arboretum and art galleries. There’s always something going on at Penn, whether it’s a new exhibit at the Penn Museum, the latest music
  or theater presentation at the Annenberg Center, or the Penn Relays at Franklin Field to name just a few examples. As a member of the Penn
  community, you’re right in the middle of the excitement-and you and your family can enjoy many of these activities for
  free.
• Discounts and Special Services: From arts and entertainment to transportation and mortgages, you’ll find great deals
  for University faculty and staff. Not only do Penn arts and cultural centers and museums offer free and discounted admission and memberships
  to faculty and staff. You can also enjoy substantial savings on other goods and services such as new cars from Ford and General Motors,
  cellular phone service plans, movie tickets, and admission to theme parks.
• Flexible Work Hours: Flexible work options offer
  creative approaches for completing work while promoting balance between work and personal commitments. These approaches involve use of
  non-traditional work hours, locations, and/or job structures.
• Penn Home Ownership Services: Penn offers a forgivable loan for
  eligible employees interested in buying a home or currently residing in West Philadelphia, which can be used for closing costs or home
  improvements.
• Adoption Assistance: Penn will reimburse eligible employees on qualified expenses in connection with the legal
  adoption of an eligible child, such as travel or court fees, for up to two adoptions in your household.

To learn more, please
visit: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/benefits-pay

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The
University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex,
sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age,
disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.

To apply, visit https://wd1.myworkdaysite.com/en-US/recruiting/upenn/careers-at-penn/job/Comp-Info-Science-Moore/Applicat
ion-Architect—DARPA-SciFy-Project—Penn-Engineering_JR00117575

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