Enterprise Data & AI Architect

Enterprise Data & AI Architect

Bay Cities Container has an exciting opportunity for an Enterprise Data & AI Architect for a remote based position. Bay Cities is located in Southern California (Greater Los Angeles area) and is seeking an Enterprise Data & AI Architect to either work remotely or on site. The ideal candidate will live anywhere in the United States but have the ability to travel to our corporate location as needed. Bay Cities is an Employee Owned (ESOP) corrugated packaging and display manufacturer. We design, manufacture, and deliver custom packaging, point-of-purchase displays, and fulfillment solutions for major national brands. We are in the middle of a CEO sponsored digital transformation- building an enterprise intelligence platform that connect our manufacturing, financial, sales, and operational systems through modern data architecture and AI. This is not a planning exercise. We have a functioning platform with proven results already in production.

The Role

We are hiring an Enterprise Data & AI Architect to own and extend the data intelligence and AI automation platform that drives our business transformation. You will report directly to the CIO and lead a small BI/analytics team (3-4 members).

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will write SQL, build semantic models, design data pipelines, configure AI-assisted workflows, and deliver measurable business outcomes- not just draw architecture diagrams. You'll inherit a functioning platform with real production workloads and be expected to keep it running while expanding its capabilities.

What You'll Do

Data Architecture & Warehousing

• Own and extend a SQL Server analytics data warehouse with dimensional modeling (star schema, conformed dimensions, fact/dimension tables).
• Design and maintain data pipelines from multiple legacy source systems (ERP, logistics, workflow management) through to Microsoft Fabric.
• Handle complex temporal data challenges- reconciling multiple systems with incompatible time grains.
• Maintain schema governance, documentation, and data lineage.

Business Intelligence & Reporting

• Build and maintain Power BI semantic models deployed to Microsoft Fabric.
• Develop DAX measure libraries for financial and operational reporting.
• Deliver executive dashboards- P&L, Balance Sheet, Flash Reports, cost analysis, operational metrics.
• Ensure data quality through validation and reconciliation between source systems and reporting layers.

AI & Automation

• Design and orchestrate AI agent workflows for business process automation.
• Build workflow automations for data pipelines, alerting, and system integration.
• Implement agent-assisted analytics- where AI investigates, subject matter experts validate, and the system learns.
• Manage prompt engineering, AI governance, and safety boundaries for production AI systems.

Manufacturing Cost Intelligence

• Work with legacy ERP cost models (Activity-Based Costing, BOM structures, GL interaction).
• Build margin analysis, vendor spend tracking, and cost-per-unit modeling.
• Reconcile estimated costs against actuals across multiple systems.

Stakeholder Delivery

• Translate business needs from executives (CFO, CRO, COO) into data products.
• Manage a portfolio of concurrent analytics projects from intake through delivery.
• Deliver iteratively- prove value in days, not months.

Team Leadership

• Lead and mentor a small BI/Analytics team.
• Distribute work to eliminate single-person bottlenecks and knowledge concentration.
• Build team capability so institutional knowledge compounds across people, not in one person.
• Ensure IT governance: proper secrets management, access controls, and security practices.

Requirements

Qualifications

Required

• 5+ years SQL Server/T-SQL- complex analytical queries, views, stored procedures, dimensional modeling. This is a daily tool, not an occasional one.
• 3+ years Power BI/DAX- Semantic model development, DAX measures, evaluation context. Experience deploying models to production environments.
• Microsoft Fabric or equivalent cloud analytics platform- Data warehouse, pipelines, semantic models, workspace governance. Azure Synapse, Databricks, or Snowflake experience translates well.
• Data Warehouse Design- Dimensional modeling, star schemas, ETL/ELT patterns, slowly-changing dimensions. You've built and maintained a production data warehouse.
• Python- Data transformation, scripting, and automation. Experience with data science libraries (pandas, scikit-learn) is a plus.
• Git Version Control- All code, models, and documentation are version-controlled. Comfortable with collaborative development workflows.
• API Integration- Rest APIs, authentication flows, webhook patterns. You'll connect ERP, logistics, and cloud services.

Strongly Preferred

• AI/LLM experience- Hands-on with Claude, OpenAI, or similar. Understanding of prompt engineering, agent orchestration, or agentic AI patterns.
• Workflow Automation Platforms- n8n, Azure Logic Apps, Power Automate, Zapier, or Make. Building automated data flows and business process automation.
• Manufacturing or industrial ERP systems- Any background with ERP platforms in a manufacturing context (SSAP, Oracle, Infor, Epicor, Amtech or similar). The specific system is learnable; the domain intuition is not.
• Financial reporting concepts- GL structure, P&L, Balance Sheet, Cost Accounting. You'll partner closely with Finance.
• PowerShell- Infrastructure scripting, automation, and diagnostics in a Windows/Azure environment.
• Azure AD/Identity Management- Service accounts, credential lifecycle, gateway authentication.

Nice to Have

• Experience in packaging, printing, or discrete manufacturing.
• Change Management Awareness- understanding how technology adoption affects people.
• Vector database experience (Chroma, Pinecone, Weaviate).
• Data Vault 2.0 methodology.

What You Don't Need to Know (We'll Teach You)

• Our Specific ERP system and its data structures- they're well-documented, and you'll have AI-assisted tooling to explore them.
• Corrugated packaging manufacturing process- the domain is learnable and our platform captures institutional knowledge to help you ramp up.
• Our specific AI agent framework- if you understand the fundamentals of LLMs and prompt engineering, you'll pick up our implementation quickly.
• The history of how we got here- what matters is where we're going.

What Success Looks Like

• First 30 days: Understand the data architecture end-to-end (source systems-data warehouse-Fabric-Power BI)- Take ownership of existing production models and dashboards- Meet with key business stakeholders to understand their priorities- Assess current security Posture.
• First 90 Days: Deliver 2-3 projects end-to-end with measurable business impact. Reduce single-person dependencies on critical data paths. Implement proper secrets management and access controls. Ensure all platform assets are under enterprise IT governance.
• First 6 months: Team is delivering analytics projects independently without bottlenecks. Data pipeline architecture is documented, monitored, and resilient. AI automation framework is maintainable by the team, not dependent on any one person. New projects are being triaged and delivered on predictable, repeatable cycles.

What We Offer

• ESOP Ownership- You become an employee-owner. Your work builds your equity.
• Direct Impact- Small team, big mandate, CEO-sponsored transformation with proven results.
• Modern Stack- Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, AI Agents, Git-based development.
• Autonomy- Build real systems that deliver real business outcomes, not proof-of-concepts that sit on a shelf.
• Growth- This role expands as the platform expands. You'll shape what it becomes.

Other

• US Persons Only (US citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugee or asylee – all require proper identification and documentation).
• Up to 25% travel required.
• Physical and Environmental Requirements: While performing the duties of this Job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee is frequently required to stand and sit. The employee is occasionally required to walk and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 50 pounds. Specific vision abilities