Principal AI Architect

Role – Principal AI Architect

Location – Charlotte, NC – 100% Onsite

Long Term Contract position

Client is embarking on a transformative journey to redefine how financial crime risks are detected, assessed, and mitigated through the power of artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and modern engineering. We are seeking an exceptional Technical Principal Engineer to serve as the foremost technical leader driving the architecture and evolution of our next-generation Financial Crime platforms.

This is a rare opportunity to influence the strategic technology direction of critical enterprise capabilities spanning anti-money laundering, fraud detection, sanctions screening, customer risk assessment, transaction monitoring, and investigative operations. The successful candidate will operate at the intersection of cutting-edge AI innovation and large-scale distributed systems, designing intelligent platforms that enable faster decision making, improve risk outcomes, and enhance operational effectiveness across the organization.

As the one of the highest levels of technical authority within the engineering organization, you will define architectural vision, establish engineering standards, and lead the design and delivery of cloud-native, AI powered platforms that serve as foundational capabilities for the enterprise. This role is ideal for a distinguished engineer who combines deep technical expertise with a passion for solving some of the industry's most complex and consequential challenges.

While strategic leadership is essential, success in this role also requires a hands-on mindset. You will actively influence architecture, develop prototypes, review critical designs and code, mentor engineering teams, and help accelerate the delivery of innovative solutions that will shape the future of financial crime prevention.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Define and drive the long-term technology strategy for Financial Crime modernization initiatives.
• Lead architecture and implementation of AI-powered investigation platforms, decisioning engines, and agentic workflows.
• Establish engineering standards, design patterns, and reference architectures across Financial Crime platforms.
• Serve as the highest-level technical reviewer for architecture, security, scalability, resiliency, and performance decisions.
• Lead technical design reviews and influence enterprise architecture direction.

AI & Agentic Engineering

• Design and implement GenAI and Agentic AI solutions for:
• Investigator copilots
• Alert triage and disposition
• Risk assessment
• Entity resolution
• SAR narrative generation
• Customer screening
• Knowledge retrieval and decisioning
• Evaluate and implement modern AI frameworks including LLM orchestration, agent frameworks, vector databases, RAG architectures, model routing, guardrails, and observability.
• Partner with Data Science teams to operationalize AI/ML models into scalable production platforms.

Engineering Excellence

• Write and review high-quality production code when necessary.
• Lead proof-of-concepts, rapid prototyping, and technical spikes.
• Mentor senior engineers and establish best practices for software engineering.
• Drive automation, CI/CD, DevSecOps, testing, and operational excellence.
• Resolve complex technical challenges across multiple platforms and teams.

Platform Modernization

• Lead migration from legacy Financial Crime applications to cloud-native architectures.
• Architect scalable microservices, event-driven systems, and API-first platforms.
• Design enterprise capabilities for:
• Real-time risk assessment
• Customer screening
• Case management
• Regulatory reporting
• AI orchestration
• Data ingestion and processing
• Drive modernization using cloud technologies and enterprise platforms.

Stakeholder Partnerships

• Collaborate with Product, Compliance, Risk, Operations, Data Science, and Engineering leadership.
• Translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Present architecture strategies and modernization roadmaps to senior technology executives.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of Engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education
• 7+ years architecting, designing and leading the delivery of large-scale solutions
• 4+ years’ experience presenting technology strategy and concepts to C-level executives and large audiences
• 5+ years’ experience delivering cloud ready and cloud native solutions

Desired Qualifications:

• 2+ years of experience developing or deploying AI‑powered tools, chatbots, LLM‑based automation, or agentic workflows, including understanding of AI risks, observability needs, and stakeholder communication
• 4+ years of Financial Services industry
• Excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to prioritize work, meet deadlines, achieve goals, and work under pressure.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to solve complex technical problems.