Principal AI Platform Architect (San Mateo)

Come work at a place where innovation and teamwork come together to support the most exciting missions in the world!About the RoleYou will define and lead the reference architecture for third-party AI products within IT, enabling secure, scalable agentic capabilities and accelerating enterprise-wide AI adoption. In this role, you will design, scope, and implement complex AI workflows, operating at the intersection of business operations, AI workflow design, data architecture, enterprise integration, data orchestration, and change management.You will own the end-to-end design and build of a modern lake house and AI ecosystem—powering intelligent automation, advanced analytics, and global-scale AI use cases. This includes working across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data, while ensuring solutions are secure, reliable, scalable, and aligned with real-world clinical and administrative processes. You bring a hands-on mindset, driving outcomes across architecture, engineering, and platform leadership.What You’ll DoOwn the architectural vision, principles, and guardrails for AI-first capabilities, including agent orchestration, runtime hosting, model gateways, retrieval/grounding, and enterprise integrations.Define reference architectures for agentic runtimes, tool integration, policy enforcement, identity, and secure data access in production.Drive non-functional requirements (reliability, performance, cost efficiency, scalability) and establish SLOs and validation approaches.Translate business and operational requirements into scalable AI flow architectures that are grounded in customer context and AI best practices.Develop and optimize data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration pipelines across diverse enterprise systemsEstablish data models, governance standards, lineage, and data quality frameworksEnable AI readiness through structured data access, feature pipelines, and embedding/vector capabilitiesDesign and implement secure, compliant, and scalable cloud-based data infrastructureBuild APIs and reusable platform services for downstream AI and application teamsPartner with engineering and business teams to translate requirements into robust data solutionsContribute to foundational MLOps/LLMOps readiness (pipeline standardization, monitoring, lifecycle considerations)What We’re Looking ForRequired Qualifications15+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, or data architectureDeep expertise in distributed systems and cloud-native design, with strong knowledge of modern AI architectures (LLM serving, RAG, agentic orchestration)Experience building production AI systems with strong observability, reliability engineering, and cost controlsProven track record of building or transforming enterprise-scale data platforms / lakehouse architecturesStrong hands-on expertise in:Data pipelines (batch and streaming)Distributed data processing systemsCloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)Experience with data modeling, governance, lineage, and quality frameworksExcellent executive communication skills, with the ability to drive decisions under ambiguityHands-on architectural credibility, with the ability to go deep when needed and guide teams from concept to productionStrong programming skills (Python, SQL, or equivalent)Solid understanding of security, access control, and enterprise data management principlesPreferred Qualifications (Value-Adding Prior Experience)Experience supporting or enabling AI/ML or GenAI workloadsFamiliarity with vector databases, embeddings, or feature engineering pipelinesExposure to event-driven or real-time data architecturesExperience working within complex enterprise application ecosystems (CRM, ERP, HR, integrations, etc.)Prior experience in product-based, high-scale, or global environmentsWhy Join UsOpportunity to build the enterprise data and AI foundation from scratchHigh-impact, high-visibility role influencing long-term strategyWork on scalable, real-world AI enablement **The salary range for this position is $185,000 - $220,000 per year. Final compensation will be determined based on several factors, including but not limited to skills, relevant experience, and work location. Please note this range reflects base salary and does not include incentive compensation or potential equity grants. We also offer a comprehensive and highly competitive benefits package.Qualys is an Equal Opportunity Employer, please see our EEO policy.SummaryLocation: Foster CityType: Full time