Senior Solution Design Consultant (AI) (Indianapolis)

IWU is seeking a Senior Solution Design Consultant for AI and Traditional Software (Independent Contractor - 1099 / Contract-to-Hire) to add their expertise to major university wide application refactoring and software development efforts on Sovereign AI-First platforms to advance large-scale technology reorganization projects.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

• Build real AI-First based solutions , not just bolt-on 3rd party solutions. IWU is reengineering the core of higher education from the ground up.
• IWU is re-platforming its enterprise on a multi-site, active/active, and on-premises data center foundation and an AI-first application stack . Every major initiative needs a solution designer who can translate business intent into buildable specifications – integration patterns, data flows, API contracts, and AI workflow design that can be implemented using advanced “ Enterprise Vibe Coding ” standards that development teams can implement without guesswork. We are seeking a senior practitioner with extensive AI experience to guide end-to-end solution design for process reengineering, existing application re-platforming, and new product development workstreams.
• This is a hands-on role using the latest AI enabled Enterprise Level Vibe Coding Standards . IWU runs workloads on infrastructure we own and operate in multiple commercial colocation facilities. You will design enterprise application and Sovereign AI Agentic solutions that fit our platform – RAG pipelines, agent-assisted workflows, API integrations, and modern application patterns – within standards set by Enterprise Architecture and Information Security.
• You will be a senior individual contributor with broad influence : you will elicit and document requirements, produce decision-quality design artifacts, facilitate trade-off conversations with business and technical stakeholders, and partner with developers, data engineers, and platform teams until the solution is built, tested, and operational.

Solution Design and Specification

• Lead end-to-end solution design for assigned workstreams – current-state is already well documented , you will help build future-state vision, gap analysis, and RAD approaches aligned to the re-platforming roadmap.
• Produce solution design documents – context diagrams, sequence flows, data models, integration specifications, non-functional requirements, and acceptance criteria that development teams can implement and test against.
• Run design workshops with business owners, product leads, and engineers – capture decisions, assumptions, constraints, and open questions with clear owners and dates.
• Maintain requirements traceability – from requirement capture and business outcomes through design artifact to implemented feature for audit, change control, and benefits tracking.

AI-Native Solution Patterns

• Design AI-first enabled business solutions – Agentic / retrieval-augmented generation ( RAG ), conversational interfaces, agent-assisted workflows, document intelligence, and decision-support features – that map to our on-premises AI platform capabilities.
• Specify LLM integration patterns – prompt contracts, context assembly, tool-use boundaries, guardrails, fallback behavior, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints appropriate to risk and regulatory context.
• Design data and retrieval flows for AI features – source systems, embedding pipelines, vector store boundaries, freshness requirements, and authorization models that respect FERPA and institutional data classification.
• Partner with the Enterprise AI Architects on platform fit – you design what the solution needs; the architect sets what the platform provides – and escalate exceptions with documented rationale.

Delivery Partnership and Quality

• Support development and QA teams during implementation – clarify specifications, adjudicate edge cases, and approve design deviations with updated documentation.
• Participate in architecture and security review boards – present designs, respond to findings, and track remediation before production release.
• Contribute to the solution standards catalog – reusable patterns, reference implementations, and anti-patterns learned from delivery – so the next team moves faster.
• Partner with EPMO and workstream leads on realistic estimates, dependency mapping, and milestone definitions tied to design completion gates.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

Required

• According to Indiana Wesleyan University policy, all employees and contract-to-hire contractors must possess a strong Christian commitment and adhere to the standards outlined in the IWU Community Lifestyle Statement .
• 8+ years of progressive experience in solution design , business systems analysis, application architecture, or technical product ownership, with 3+ years designing software solutions in production environments.
• Extensive experience as a developer, integration engineer, or data engineer – you know what buildable looks like and push back when designs are fantasy.
• Demonstrated experience producing solution design artifacts – specifications, integration designs, data flows, and API contracts – that development teams have successfully implemented.
• Hands-on AI solution design experience – using RAG, LLM-backed features, agent workflows, or intelligent automation – not merely consuming SaaS AI widgets without understanding the architecture.
• Strong requirements elicitation andd knowledge-transfer skills – workshops, interviews, process mapping, and translating ambiguous business requests into testable requirements.
• Experience designing distributed application and integration solutions – APIs, events, message queues, and enterprise system connectivity.
• Experience with agent and orchestration frameworks at the solution-design level – tool boundaries, state, and operational concerns.
• Experience with vector retrieval and knowledge-base design – chunking strategy, metadata filters, re-ranking, and grounding patterns for enterprise RAG.
• Ability to facilitate trade-off conversations with technical and non-technical stakeholders – you document decisions, not just opinions.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field – or equivalent demonstrated experience .

Strongly Preferred

• Higher-education , non-profit, or other mission-driven institutional experience – student information systems, ERP, LMS, or enrollment/admissions workflows.
• Background in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments – FERPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2 – and designing solutions with auditable controls.
• Experience with Agile/SAFe delivery – writing epics and features, participating in PI planning, and aligning design gates to sprint and release cadence.
• Proficiency with modeling and documentation tools – UML, BPMN, C4, Mermaid, D2Lang, Confluence, or equivalent – and the discipline to keep artifacts current.
• Relevant certifications or training (IASA, TOGAF practitioner, SAFe POPM, Azure/AWS or other solution design credentials, or equivalent demonstrated depth ).

How You Work

• You design for operability and adoption, not diagram elegance – if support staff cannot run it or users cannot trust it, the design is not done.
• You make assumptions explicit – undocumented assumptions become production defects and steering-meeting arguments.
• You write things down . A verbal design agreement without a specification is a liability.
• You partner with architects and developers as peers – you bring solution context; they bring platform depth.
• You stay curious about AI capability and limits – you design for what models do well today and where human oversight remains mandatory.

Why This Role

• High Impact . Solution designers sit at the center of business intent and build execution – your specifications determine whether teams ship the right thing on the first pass.
• AI-native design from the start . You are not adding chatbots to legacy forms – you are shaping how intelligent workflows, retrieval, and agents fit enterprise processes on our own platform.
• Standards-backed, not ad hoc . You work within a defined architecture and solution standards catalog – enough structure to move fast, enough rigor to stay auditable.
• Cross-functional visibility – Tip of the Spear. You touch integration, data, security, AI platform, and business domains – broad exposure and direct impact on program outcomes.
• Mission and meaning . IWU is a]]>