Overview
Skills
Job Details
Title: Senior AI Architect
Location: Remote
Duration: 10+ Months
What are the requirements you are looking for in a candidate?
Our university is seeking a Senior AI Architect to lead and oversee a portfolio of AI technical activities serving nearly 86,000 students and 20,000 employees across academic, research, and administrative functions. You'll serve as the technical leader and product owner responsible for our enterprise AI platform, management of enterprise LLM licenses, and enabling AI development across the institution.
The Azure-hosted platform will provide chat access to multiple AI models and enable power users to build custom assistants, with future expansion to agentic capabilities. You'll configure and manage enterprise deployments with major LLM vendors, lead a central development team, and enable AI developers across the university through tools, standards, and support-including potential deployment of enterprise tools for API and MCP server management.
This role combines technical architecture, product ownership, and team leadership. You'll manage a phased platform rollout, build and lead a central development team (initially small, potentially starting with graduate students), and establish processes for intake, prioritization, and delivery across all AI initiatives.
Key Responsibilities Portfolio Leadership
- Oversee portfolio of AI technical activities including platform, enterprise licenses, and development initiatives
- Configure and manage enterprise deployments with major LLM vendors including Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI
- Balance priorities and resources across multiple initiatives
- Establish processes for intake, prioritization, and delivery of AI work
- Drive platform adoption and usage across the university
Platform Ownership & Architecture
- Serve as product owner for the university's enterprise AI platform, making key technical and product decisions
- Design and oversee architecture of a multi-model AI platform hosted in Azure
- Ensure platform scalability, reliability, security, and compliance across diverse use cases
- Lead phased rollout to users across the institution
- Enable power users to build assistants and agents, starting with select groups
- Monitor platform performance and usage to drive continuous improvement
Development Enablement & Oversight
- Lead a central AI development team while enabling developers across the university
- Deploy and manage enterprise tools for API management, MCP server management, and other development needs
- Establish standards, best practices, and governance for AI development activities
- Guide technical approach and architecture decisions for development projects
- Ensure solutions meet quality, security, and compliance standards
Team Leadership
- Build and lead a team that will include developers, a DevOps engineer, and a communications specialist
- Direct DevOps engineer and communications specialist to support portfolio activities
- Mentor team members, including graduate students and junior developers
- Collaborate with assigned project management and organizational change management resources
- Manage workload across platform, licenses, and development initiatives
Collaboration & Governance
- Partner with IT teams including cloud, identity/access management, training, and service desk
- Consult with compliance offices (security, privacy, legal, accessibility)
- Contribute to and engage with university-level committees such as AI governance and AI ethics
- Engage with stakeholders across academic departments, research centers, and administrative units
Required Qualifications
- Minimum 5 years of experience in AI/ML, data science, or related technical fields
- Demonstrated experience working with large language models (LLMs) and generative AI
- Hands-on experience with major cloud platforms (Azure preferred; AWS or Google Cloud Platform acceptable)
- Strong understanding of enterprise-scale system architecture, APIs, and integrations
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex technical projects from conception to delivery
- Experience overseeing multiple concurrent development projects
- Excellent communication skills with ability to explain technical concepts to diverse audiences
Preferred Qualifications
- Product management or product owner experience
- Experience building and leading technical teams
- Familiarity with higher education environments
- Knowledge of responsible AI practices, data governance, and compliance requirements
- Experience with phased rollouts and change management at scale
- Experience with developer enablement and platform tooling