{"id":1984989,"url":"https://alion.io/job/karman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect","title":"Principal Artificial Intelligence Architect","company":{"id":2310318,"name":"Karman Space & Defense","domain":"karman-sd.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/karman-sd","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"ADP","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":20,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.95,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":23,"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Mukilteo, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":170000,"max":220000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":220000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot","optional":false},{"name":"Copilot Studio","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","optional":false},{"name":"Microsoft Fabric","optional":false},{"name":"Model Context Protocol","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"OpenTelemetry","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"CMMC","optional":true},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":true},{"name":"NIST AI RMF","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-07T01:40:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-23T04:45:30Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":16,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":16},"description":"Karman Space & Defense is a leader in the rapid design, development, and production of critical, next-generation system solutions that align with the U.S. Department of War and its allies’ core mission priorities, and meet the accelerating demand for access to space. Building on nearly 50 years of success, we deliver Payload & Protection Systems, Aero/Hydrodynamic Interstage Systems, and Propulsion & Launch Systems to more than 80 prime contractors supporting over 130 space and defense programs.\nIn this senior individual-contributor role, you will translate Karman’s enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) strategy into secure, scalable, and reusable architectures that accelerate responsible adoption across the organization. You will shape technical patterns, build reference implementations, evaluate emerging technologies, and establish guardrails that enable governed self-service. Partnering closely with AI/Data & Automation, Business Systems, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure, and functional teams, you will provide hands-on technical leadership that strengthens solution quality, operational consistency, and enterprise readiness.\nResponsibilities\nDefines and evolves Karman’s enterprise AI reference architecture.\nEstablishes architectural patterns for model access, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), orchestration, agents, application programming interfaces (APIs), evaluation, observability, and cost management.\nDevelops technical standards for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Fabric, and other approved enterprise AI capabilities.\nEvaluates external platforms and models based on security, performance, cost, and business needs.\nDesigns architectures that support portability using APIs, abstraction layers, open protocols, and exit strategies.\nBuilds proofs of concept, reference implementations, reusable components, and technical accelerators.\nProvides hands-on support for complex AI use cases, including RAG solutions, agentic workflows, model-integrated applications, and automation.\nEstablishes reusable templates, patterns, guardrails, and documentation to enable governed self-service.\nTranslates enterprise AI governance requirements into technical controls for identity, access, logging, monitoring, classification, retention, and human oversight.\nDefines evaluation, observability, quality, operational readiness, incident response, and lifecycle management standards for AI solutions.\nRequired Qualifications\nSignificant experience in enterprise architecture, cloud architecture, software engineering, or platform engineering.\nRecent experience designing and deploying production generative artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.\nStrong working knowledge of the Microsoft cloud and AI ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Fabric, Entra ID, Purview, and Microsoft security technologies.\nHands-on experience integrating commercial AI models through APIs and building model-enabled applications.\nStrong understanding of RAG architectures, agent patterns, tool use, model orchestration, vector search, and enterprise data integration.\nFamiliarity with standards and technologies such as Model Context Protocol (MCP), OpenTelemetry, open-weight models, and modern inference platforms.\nExperience designing secure systems in regulated or high-assurance environments.\nAbility and willingness to write code, build prototypes, review designs, and troubleshoot technical issues.\nStrong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical tradeoffs to technical and executive audiences.\nPreferred Qualifications\nExperience in aerospace, defense, government, manufacturing, financial services, or other regulated industries.\nExperience with GCC High, sovereign cloud, restricted environments, or controlled-data architectures.\nFamiliarity with frameworks such as Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-171, Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), NIST AI Risk Management Framework (RMF), and International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 42001.\nExperience integrating AI with enterprise platforms such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), product lifecycle management (PLM), manufacturing execution systems (MES), customer relationship management (CRM), productivity, analytics, and workflow systems.\nFamiliarity with graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure, self-hosted models, fine-tuning, and private inference environments.\nRelevant Microsoft, cloud, architecture, or security certifications.\nThis position requires U.S. person status under U.S. export control laws, including U.S. citizens and nationals, lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees.\nBenefits\nMedical, dental, and vision insurance\n401(k) with company match\nPaid time off\nHealth Savings Account (HSA) with company contribution\nFlexible Spending Accounts (FSA)\nCompany-paid life and AD&D insurance\nShort- and long-term disability coverage\nTuition reimbursement\nKarman Space and Defense is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other status protected by applicable law.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5513,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":true,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Vision insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Manufacturing","Military","Defense Manufacturing"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-07T01:55:40Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":53,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.592,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":23,"reasons":["conf:0","stale_co","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-22T06:10:10Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":220000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/karman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/karman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-23T05:18:07Z","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":8736,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-24T00:00:00Z"}},"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":2310318},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=2310318"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fkarman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect"},{"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%2Fkarman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect"},{"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%2Fkarman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect"},{"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/karman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkarman-space-defense-principal-artificial-intelligence-architect"}]}