{"id":3002405,"url":"https://alion.io/job/circle-k-platform-architect-ai","title":"Platform Architect - AI","company":{"id":1785121,"name":"Circle K","domain":"circlek.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/circlek-com","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Warsaw, Poland"],"countries":["PL"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":68000,"max_usd":117000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_cell","sample_n":17},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon EC2","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon SageMaker","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"AWS Bedrock","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"DINOv2","optional":false},{"name":"Embeddings","optional":false},{"name":"EU AI Act","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"GCP","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":false},{"name":"Hugging Face","optional":false},{"name":"Hybrid Search","optional":false},{"name":"Kubeflow","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"LLMOps","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"MLFlow","optional":false},{"name":"NLP","optional":false},{"name":"OCR","optional":false},{"name":"Pinecone","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Realtime API","optional":false},{"name":"Roboflow","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"YOLO","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-15T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T14:38:57Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":9,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":9},"description":"Job Description\nWe're looking for an experienced Platform Architect (AI) to design, implement, and scale AI-driven solutions across our organization. This role combines deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, translating business needs into concrete, production-ready AI architectures. The work spans several domains and technology stacks - computer vision, language models, document processing, and data-driven automation. Each project will bring its own constraints, its own trade-offs, and often its own toolset.\nThe first project in scope is a visual similarity search/embeddings/vector retrieval solution for automated verification of store display compliance.\nResponsibilities:\nDesign end-to-end architecture for AI/ML systems, from proof of concept to production\nSelect appropriate technologies, frameworks, and models\nOversee integration of AI solutions with existing systems and data infrastructure\nEvaluate build vs. buy decisions for AI capabilities, including cost modelling and vendor lock-in risk\nEnsure solutions are scalable, secure, cost-efficient, and compliant with relevant regulations (e.g. GDPR, EU AI Act)\nGuide MLOps/LLMOps practices - retraining triggers, drift and quality monitoring criteria, versioning strategy across models and data, and rollback paths and work with MLOps engineers on their implementation\nMentor AI Engineers on AI architecture patterns and emerging best practices\nStay current with the AI landscape (foundation models, vector databases, agentic frameworks, RAG, fine-tuning) and assess their applicability to CK challenges\nCreate and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and decision records\nAct as the technical liaison to the organization's AI Security function - bringing them in at key design decisions (data flows, model endpoints, third-party integrations) rather than making security calls unilaterally; ensure access control, encryption, and safeguards against adversarial or malicious inputs (e.g. spoofed images, injection attacks on NL components) meet organizational standards, and verify new third-party integrations against existing security approvals rather than assuming blanket coverage from prior vendor vetting. \nProject-specific requirements (visual similarity search):\nDesign and maintain the pipeline architecture: product detection → parallel analysis (visual embedding, OCR, category classification) → hybrid query to the vector database → matching against the planogram\nDecide on specific models and components (e.g. RF-DETR vs. alternatives, DINOv2 as embedder), weighing trade-offs: accuracy, cost, licensing, time to delivery\nDesign category-specific query strategies (e.g. different signal weights for cigarettes vs. bottles - text-signal dominance vs. visual-embedding dominance)\nMake hosting and cost decisions: self-hosted GPU infrastructure (AWS) vs. managed services (Roboflow Inference, Pinecone SaaS), appropriate to the scale\nDefine and oversee the API contract between the AI pipeline and the rest of the system (backend, RELEX integration) - what exactly the model returns, how low-confidence matches are handled\nSet measurable quality thresholds (precision/recall per product category, acceptable false-positive rate) jointly with the Product Owner\nVerify license compliance of chosen components (e.g. Apache vs. AGPL-3.0 for YOLO-family models) against the product's business model\nProvide architectural oversight of the AI/ML Engineer's work - architectural code review, not day-to-day implementation\nPlan the improvement loop: how approved image crops from field verification feed back into the index as additional real-world reference material\nEngage the organization's AI Security team early to review the pipeline's data flows (store photos, embeddings, RELEX and Pinecone connections) and confirm required controls; verify the RELEX integration follows existing organizational security standards for this specific access pattern (e.g. real-time API vs. batch export), and work with AI Security to define requirements for new components introduced by this project - encryption in transit and at rest, access control for the Pinecone connection, and a data-retention policy for photos that may incidentally capture employees or customers (GDPR relevance given the Polish/EU context).\nRequirements:\n5+ years of experience in software architecture, with at least 2-3 years focused on AI/ML systems\nStrong understanding of machine learning fundamentals, deep learning, and modern NLP/LLM architectures\nHands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and their AI/ML services\nExperience with MLOps tools (e.g., MLflow, Kubeflow, SageMaker) and CI/CD for ML pipelines\nProficiency in Python and familiarity with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Hugging Face)\nExperience with vector databases, RAG pipelines, and agentic AI frameworks\nSolid grasp of data architecture, APIs, and system integration patterns\nExcellent communication skills - able to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders\nExperience leading technical teams or mentoring engineers.\nAdditional project-specific (visual similarity search) requirements:\nHands-on experience with production computer vision pipelines (not just research projects) - object detection, embedding models, vector/hybrid search\nFamiliarity with the ecosystem: DETR/YOLO-family models, Roboflow (or a comparable data management and training tool), vector databases (Pinecone or equivalent)\nAbility to evaluate cost trade-offs between self-hosted GPU and managed/SaaS inference\nUnderstanding of open-source model licensing constraints (AGPL, Apache, MIT) and their business implications\nExperience designing systems with multiple parallel decision signals (multi-signal retrieval/ranking)\nWorking knowledge of AWS (ML/GPU area: SageMaker, EC2 GPU, Bedrock) - doesn't need to be a DevOps expert, but must be able to discuss architecture with the DevOps Engineer\nExperience in making architectural decisions under time and budget pressure - the ability to say \"this model is good enough, we don't need the latest SOTA\" or \"this is a licensing risk, we'll avoid it by choosing a different component,\" rather than defaulting to the technically most interesting but most expensive solution\nNice to have: prior experience in retail (product recognition, planograms, store display compliance).\nWhat do we offer?\nContract of employment\nAnnual bonus \nPrivate medical care \nCafeteria Platform/Multisport\nEnglish lessons subsidized by the company \nGroup insurance \nTwo additional days off (Good Friday, Friday after Corpus Christi) - with the possibility of exchanging for other holidays\nEmployee Referral Bonus Program\nAttractive discounts for products and services at our stations \nEmployee stock purchase plan \nEmployee Assistance Program (Lyra)\nModern and convenient office that you can virtually visit here - https://goo.gl/maps/CLteHfYcdYMbdESq6 \nTrainings & possibility to develop skills in a wide international environment \nWant to know even more about us? Take a look at our career page: https://workwithus.circlek.com/global/en/businesscentrewarsaw\nInterested?\nWe encourage you to apply.\nWe know great companies are built from within, by great people like you. Come grow with us! We´re looking forward to your application.\nWhen working with us you can depend upon it that you will not be judged on the grounds of race, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, or other legally protected status. Oppositely - we believe that our diverse and inclusive culture helps us create an amazing atmosphere where everybody feels welcome.\nCheck who we are here: https://youtu.be/td-QGnNnvW0\nWe hereby inform that in the company Circle K Business Centre Poland sp. z o.o. with registered office in Warsaw an Internal Notification and Follow-up Actions Procedures applies. The document describes rules for reporting violations of law by whistleblowers. Full content of the above-mentioned Procedure is available here: https://www.circlek.pl/o-nas/procedury-zgloszen","description_format":"text","description_chars":8066,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Cafeteria"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Fossil Fuels","EV Charging","Car Wash"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-21T12:39:02Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":45,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.825,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":9,"expected_fill_days":9,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:tail","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-24T06:02:35Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/circle-k-platform-architect-ai","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/circle-k-platform-architect-ai.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-24T15:51:04Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":22811,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-25T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1785121},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1785121"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcircle-k-platform-architect-ai"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcircle-k-platform-architect-ai"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcircle-k-platform-architect-ai"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/circle-k-platform-architect-ai\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcircle-k-platform-architect-ai"}]}