Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting

We’re hiring a Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting!

Employment Type: Full-Time/Direct Hire

Location: Richmond, VA, Atlanta, GA, Washington, DC, New York City & Charlotte, NC Metro Areas

Location Type: Hybrid – 1-2 days onsite per week – Home Office/Local Ippon office

About Ippon

The Ippon story started in 2002 in Paris, France – the founding idea emerged from our founder and CEO Stéphane Nomis’s experience as an international Judo champion, which shaped a culture built on ambition and excellence. The US headquarters sits in Richmond, VA, with offices in New York, Washington DC, and Atlanta. Ippon is a technology consulting firm focused on accelerating clients’ digital roadmaps across Product Management, Cloud, DevOps, Data, AI, and Software Engineering. Our core strengths include deep financial services expertise, technology excellence, and a coaching mindset. We are a Premier Snowflake Partner and an Advanced AWS Partner.

About The Position

The Practice Head of AI Product & Architecture will lead Ippon’s APA practice, combining deep expertise in software development, product engineering, agile delivery, architecture, and applied AI. The role governs growth of a high‑performing consulting team, shapes methods and offerings, and ensures delivery excellence across complex client engagements. The ideal candidate is a proven leader with consulting instincts and a track record of delivering technology outcomes, grounded in modern engineering practices and hands‑on AI experience in product development, software delivery, customer experience, and enterprise operations.

Practice Leadership & Team Development

• Lead and grow the practice across people, offerings, delivery standards, and market positioning.
• Continuously improve consulting methods, delivery playbooks, technical standards, and ways of working in collaboration with Customer Success and Senior Leadership.
• Build a strong team culture grounded in software craft, product thinking, architectural discipline, and practical AI adoption, emphasizing psychological safety, accountability, and measurable improvement.
• Recruit, develop, coach, and retain high‑performing consultants, engineers, architects, product leaders, and delivery practitioners.

Delivery Excellence

• Provide senior oversight across client engagements involving software development, product engineering, AI‑enabled delivery, modernization, and architecture.
• Ensure solutions are maintainable, secure, scalable, and aligned to client outcomes, promoting modern practices such as continuous delivery, test automation, observability, and platform thinking.
• Use metrics such as DORA, flow metrics, and business outcome measures to drive evidence‑based improvement.
• Help clients adopt flexible, sustainable delivery models that balance speed, governance, quality, and business value – coaching cross‑functional teams on effective collaboration across product, engineering, architecture, security, and compliance.

AI Leadership

• In collaboration with the CTO, shape APA’s approach to applied AI across product engineering, software development, architecture, and delivery transformation.
• Help clients identify and pursue practical AI use cases that improve delivery speed, product quality, customer experience, or operational efficiency.
• Guide teams in the responsible use of AI‑assisted development tools, agentic workflows, and intelligent applications, with clear understanding of associated risks including governance, security, privacy, and regulatory considerations.
• Partner with Ippon’s data and cloud leaders to connect APA’s AI capabilities with strengths in AWS, Snowflake, and data architecture.

Client and Thought Leadership

• Support sales pursuits, proposals, and executive conversations – translating ambiguous client needs into clear engagement strategies, delivery plans, and measurable outcomes.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders at the intersection of product, engineering, architecture, data, cloud, AI, and governance.
• Define and package APA offerings across AI‑enabled product engineering, software modernization, delivery effectiveness, and engineering excellence.
• Drive brand awareness through thought leadership initiatives including events, blogs, white papers, and client success stories.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of consulting experience.
• 5+ years of experience leading software engineering, product engineering, architecture, or technology consulting teams.
• 5+ years of experience building, managing, coaching, and growing high‑performing technical teams.
• 7+ years of experience and deep understanding of modern software development practices, including software architecture, software craft, DevOps, CI/CD, testing strategies, and cloud‑native delivery.
• 7+ years of experience with product development and product‑oriented ways of working.
• Strong working knowledge of agile delivery practices, with the judgment to adapt methods to fit client context rather than applying process mechanically.
• Hands‑on experience with AI tools, AI‑enabled software development, intelligent applications, or applied enterprise AI use cases.
• 7+ years of experience in financial services, banking, insurance, capital markets, or related regulated industries.
• Excellent organizational skills, including the ability to manage people, priorities, offerings, delivery quality, and practice operations simultaneously.
• Strong client‑facing communication skills, including the ability to engage credibly with executives, product leaders, engineering leaders, architects, and delivery teams.
• Experience supporting business development, proposal creation, solution design, or account growth in a consulting environment.
• Ability to travel up to 20% of the time.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Experience leading a consulting practice, capability, center of excellence, or large technology delivery organization.
• Experience using DORA metrics, SPACE, flow metrics, or other engineering effectiveness frameworks to improve delivery performance.
• Experience with AI‑assisted development tools, agentic workflows, LLM‑enabled applications, or enterprise AI governance.
• Familiarity with AWS, Snowflake, modern data platforms, and cloud‑native architecture.
• Experience with modernization programs, legacy system transformation, platform engineering, or large‑scale digital product delivery.
• Experience creating market‑facing offerings, white papers, executive presentations, workshops, and assessment frameworks.
• Understanding of regulatory requirements and compliance standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) within the Financial Services and Insurance industries.
• Knowledge of IT strategy and management.
• Demonstrated experience of presenting talks at conferences, publishing white papers, and public speaking.
• Competitive salary – Great starting salaries for well qualified candidates.
• Generous Paid Time Off policy – Ippon offers flexible time off to help you be your best.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance – We are dedicated to helping our employees live healthier lives through comprehensive health programs.
• 401k with company match – Ippon offers an industry leading 401(k) matching plan.
• Family Leave – We support the importance of family and offer maternity, paternity and family medical leave plans.
• The chance to work in a startup‑esque environment with a fun, smart, and healthy work environment, focused on our values, teamwork, and custom Slack emojis.