Data & Annotation Engineer

About the Program: 

Innodata's Federal Practice builds the trusted data layer for critical infrastructure Trust & Safety work. Partnering with a leading systems integrator, we're delivering a modern, governed data services platform in a secure federal (IL4) environment. Over an intensive 20-week phase, you'll help stand up a data services storefront, a DataCard governance framework, synthetic data integration, and Databricks write-back capabilities.

About the Role: 

As the Data/Annotation Engineer, you'll be hands-on with the data itself. You'll administer the annotation toolchain, manage annotation workflows across the corpus, and produce the per-dataset documentation that feeds our governance framework. You'll work with the AI Solutions Engineer to ensure the data going into our models is accurate, well-labeled, and fully traceable. This role is for someone detail-obsessed who understands that great AI starts with disciplined, well-governed data.

Key Responsibilities:

• Receive, validate, ingest, and ontology-map the ODIN mission-aligned corpus from AFS delivery
• Produce the ODIN load report: corpus description, ontology mapping, readiness state
• Configure CVAT annotation pipeline against the Phase 1 starter kit rule pack
• Operate both self-service and lightweight white-glove annotation paths during Phase D corpus production
• Produce 50–100 label demonstration corpus across synthetic and mission-aligned content
• Support QA/Evaluation Lead on QC execution and corpus annotation dry-runs
• Associate DataCard provenance records with annotated and synthetic outputs in coordination with the Solution Architect

Must-Have Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, or related field preferred. Equivalent experience may substitute for degree on a 2-for-1 basis.
• 5+ years total professional experience, 3+ years in data engineering or annotation operations
• CVAT — deployment and day-to-day operation required; this is not a nice-to-have
• Annotated dataset ingest pipelines: schema mapping, format validation, ontology alignment
• Full-motion video (FMV) annotation concepts and tooling
• Python scripting for data wrangling, validation, and format conversion
• Active Secret clearance with TS/SCI eligibility

Nice-to-Have Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, or related field required; Master's degree preferred. Equivalent experience may substitute for degree on a 2-for-1 basis
• CVAT annotation platform — AI feature configuration and operation
• DoD or IC data program experience: CUI, distribution statements, federal data governance
• Evaluation design for AI/ML training data: IAA methodology, drift detection, model performance measurement
• Video understanding or FMV annotation experience
• DataCard or ML data provenance framework familiarity

The expected hourly salary range for this position is $55 to $60 p/hour, based on experience, skills, and qualifications.

Note to Candidates: 

Phase D corpus production (Weeks 17–19) is the core demonstration deliverable for the program's largest payment milestone ($131,250). Candidates must be genuinely comfortable operating CVAT at production quality against a mission dataset under a milestone deadline