Platform Lead / Architect – AI Platform Engineering

📍 Location: 100% Remote
💼 Employment Type: Contract / Full-Time

About the Role

Photon is seeking a highly experienced Platform Lead / Architect – AI Platform Engineering to lead the architecture, design, and delivery of Tulip AI, a unified AI-powered employee support platform.

Tulip AI is an enterprise-grade AI platform that streamlines employee support across frontline and headquarters teams through a single AI-driven experience. The platform leverages Generative AI, workflow orchestration, enterprise integrations, automation, and cloud-native technologies to improve operational efficiency and accelerate issue resolution.

The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in enterprise architecture, AI platforms, cloud-native systems, distributed architectures, Python-based backend development, and platform engineering. This role requires strong technical leadership and the ability to drive architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the overall architecture, technical strategy, and solution design for Tulip AI and related digital platforms.
• Design and deliver scalable, secure, resilient, and cloud-native enterprise solutions.
• Architect backend services, APIs, and microservices using Python and FastAPI.
• Drive implementation of Generative AI, agentic AI capabilities, workflow orchestration, and intelligent automation solutions.
• Design enterprise integration architectures connecting HR, IT, identity management, operational systems, and third-party platforms.
• Define and enforce standards for APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, and integration patterns.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, UX, and Business stakeholders to align technical solutions with business objectives.
• Support product roadmap planning, backlog prioritization, and Agile delivery processes.
• Establish engineering best practices around scalability, performance, security, observability, monitoring, and reliability.
• Drive adoption of AI-assisted development, automation, and engineering productivity tools.
• Provide technical leadership, architectural governance, and mentorship across engineering teams.
• Lead cloud deployment strategies leveraging Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and DevOps practices.
• Ensure production readiness through testing strategies, monitoring, logging, and operational excellence.

Required Qualifications

Must Have

• 12+ years of experience in Software Engineering, Platform Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, or Solution Architecture.
• Strong expertise in Python development and FastAPI-based microservices architecture.
• Extensive experience designing and implementing cloud-native enterprise platforms.
• Hands-on experience with Generative AI, AI orchestration frameworks, AI agents, workflow automation, and enterprise AI solutions.
• Strong understanding of:
  • Microservices Architecture
  • REST APIs
  • Event-Driven Systems
  • Integration Architecture
• Experience with one or more cloud platforms:
  • AWS
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud Platform (Google Cloud Platform)
• Expertise in:
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker/Containerization
  • CI/CD Pipelines
  • DevOps Practices
  • Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.)
• Strong knowledge of:
  • Enterprise Security
  • Authentication & Authorization
  • OAuth2/OpenID Connect
  • Secure API Design
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building enterprise-scale AI platforms and digital employee experience solutions.
• Familiarity with AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar orchestration platforms.
• Experience with vector databases, RAG architectures, LLM integrations, and AI governance frameworks.
• Experience implementing observability solutions using Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry, or similar tools.
• Prior experience leading distributed engineering teams and large-scale transformation initiatives.

Technical Skills

Programming & Backend

• Python
• FastAPI
• REST APIs
• Microservices

AI & Automation

• Generative AI
• Agentic AI
• AI Orchestration Frameworks
• Workflow Automation
• LLM Integrations
• RAG Architectures

Cloud & Infrastructure

• AWS / Azure / Google Cloud Platform
• Kubernetes
• Docker
• Terraform
• Infrastructure as Code

DevOps

• CI/CD
• GitHub Actions
• Jenkins
• Azure DevOps
• Monitoring & Observability

Architecture

• Enterprise Architecture
• Distributed Systems
• Event-Driven Architecture
• Integration Architecture