Principal AI Architect

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal AI Architect based in the United States.

This is a senior technical leadership role for an experienced architect who thrives on solving complex, high-stakes challenges across cloud, data, and AI systems. You will define technical strategy and lead the architecture of end-to-end, production-ready solutions spanning modern infrastructure, data platforms, machine learning, and generative AI. Acting as the principal technical authority on key engagements, you will influence long-term technology decisions while partnering closely with clients, leadership, product, and engineering teams. The role combines hands-on technical depth with strategic leadership, requiring strong judgment across scalability, security, performance, cost, and reliability. You will mentor experienced engineers and architects while establishing standards and best practices that elevate delivery across multiple domains. This is an opportunity to shape impactful AI solutions in a fast-moving, collaborative environment where ownership, experimentation, and engineering excellence are highly valued.

Accountabilities:

• Define technical strategy and lead the end-to-end architecture of complex systems spanning cloud infrastructure, data platforms, AI/ML workloads, and enterprise applications.
• Architect scalable cloud-native, multi-cloud, and hybrid solutions using technologies such as AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, containers, serverless platforms, and event-driven architectures.
• Design robust data architectures, including data warehouses, data lakes, batch and streaming pipelines, data models, and orchestration workflows.
• Lead the design of production AI and machine learning systems, including LLM-based applications, agentic systems, model serving, MLOps pipelines, feature stores, evaluation frameworks, and responsible AI practices.
• Establish standards for infrastructure as code, CI/CD, DevOps, observability, reliability, and operational excellence across technical engagements.
• Drive architectural decisions that optimize system performance, scalability, cost efficiency, security, and long-term maintainability.
• Lead cloud migration, modernization, and platform transformation initiatives while ensuring architecture aligns with business and product objectives.
• Ensure solutions meet applicable security, governance, privacy, and compliance requirements, including frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2 where relevant.
• Serve as the senior technical voice in discussions with leadership and clients, translating complex technical concepts into clear recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Partner closely with engineering, data, AI, and product teams to align architecture, delivery priorities, and implementation plans.
• Develop and maintain architecture documentation, technical standards, design guidelines, and reusable best practices.
• Mentor experienced engineers and architects, helping strengthen technical judgment, leadership capabilities, and overall engineering impact.
• Own the most complex architectural and integration challenges, making high-stakes technical decisions and resolving critical system design issues.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, frameworks, and AI tools, recommending practical approaches that improve delivery quality, speed, and technical outcomes.
• Apply an AI-forward mindset by leveraging modern AI-assisted development tools and practices to improve productivity, experimentation, and engineering quality.
• Support client engagements that may require up to 20% travel within the United States.

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in technical leadership, architecture, or other senior engineering roles.
• Deep expertise in cloud platforms and cloud-native architecture, with experience across AWS, Azure, GCP, or comparable environments.
• Strong background designing distributed systems using microservices, serverless technologies, containers, Kubernetes, Docker, and event-driven architectures.
• Proven experience with infrastructure as code and CI/CD practices using tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi, GitHub Actions, or similar technologies.
• Extensive data architecture experience across relational, NoSQL, warehouse, and big data environments, including technologies such as PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Snowflake, BigQuery, Spark, and Kafka.
• Hands-on experience with data modeling, ETL/ELT pipelines, streaming architectures, and orchestration platforms such as Airflow, Prefect, or dbt.
• Strong experience designing and delivering production AI/ML systems, including LLM applications, MLOps, model serving, model evaluation, and agentic or multi-agent architectures.
• Familiarity with AI/ML technologies and platforms such as SageMaker, Vertex AI, MLflow, Hugging Face, PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar tools.
• Strong software engineering capabilities, particularly with Python, APIs, distributed services, and containerized applications.
• Solid understanding of cloud networking, security, identity and access management, governance, observability, and compliance frameworks.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex technical initiatives and mentoring senior engineers or architects.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts and architectural tradeoffs across diverse audiences.
• Strong problem-solving skills and technical judgment, with the ability to make decisions effectively in ambiguous and rapidly evolving environments.
• Demonstrable experience using modern AI-assisted development tools to accelerate engineering and improve delivery quality.
• Multi-cloud architecture experience, responsible AI expertise, enterprise architecture certifications, or relevant AWS, Azure, GCP, or TOGAF certifications are considered advantageous.
• A proactive, resourceful, and ownership-driven mindset, with a commitment to continuous learning, direct communication, collaboration, and high-quality execution.

Benefits:

• Salary: $165,604-$228,491 USD, with final compensation determined based on factors such as experience, skills, qualifications, certifications, seniority, geographic location, and business needs.
• Comprehensive healthcare coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance for eligible employees.
• Retirement benefits: 401(k) plan.
• Paid time off: PTO designed to support rest, personal time, and work-life balance.
• Professional growth: Opportunities to work on complex cloud, data, and AI initiatives while collaborating with highly experienced technical professionals.
• Innovative work environment: Exposure to modern AI technologies, production-ready AI systems, emerging tools, and challenging enterprise architecture problems.
• Leadership impact: The opportunity to influence technical strategy, architectural standards, engineering practices, and the development of experienced technical talent.
• Flexible and collaborative culture: A high-ownership environment focused on creativity, practical problem-solving, experimentation, and delivering measurable outcomes.
• Travel opportunities: Occasional travel within the United States, with an expected travel requirement of up to 20%.