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. 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