Principal Software Architect Generative AI & Platform Engineering

Principal Software Architect

Risepoint is an education technology company that provides world-class support and trusted expertise to more than 100 universities and colleges. We primarily work with regional universities, helping them develop and grow their high-ROI, workforce-focused online degree programs in critical areas such as nursing, teaching, business, and public service. Risepoint is dedicated to increasing access to affordable education so that more students, especially working adults, can improve their careers and meet employer and community needs.

The Principal Software Architect will define and drive the architectural vision for how generative AI is built, integrated, and scaled across Risepoint's platform. As a senior individual contributor within the Product & Technology team, this role operates at the intersection of engineering, product, and data to translate complex business needs into scalable, AI-powered solutions. You will set technical direction, establish architectural standards, and influence decisions across teams without direct authority. This role offers a greenfield opportunity to shape the foundation of AI capabilities while ensuring systems are reliable, responsible, and built to scale. Your impact will be felt across the organization as you enable teams to deliver high-quality, innovative experiences that improve student outcomes.

How You Will Bring Our Mission To Life

What You Will Do

• Define and lead the architectural strategy for generative AI across Risepoint's platform, enabling scalable, high-quality solutions that expand access to affordable, workforce-relevant education.
• Design and evolve the AI platform layer, including model orchestration, prompt management, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns, evaluation pipelines, and responsible AI guardrails to ensure reliable and ethical outcomes.
• Establish experimentation frameworks that allow teams to test, compare, and optimize AI models, prompts, and retrieval strategies—driving continuous improvement in student and partner experiences.
• Develop and operationalize evaluation standards for AI output quality, including feedback loops and performance thresholds that ensure accuracy, consistency, and long-term model improvement.
• Drive build-vs-buy decisions for AI tools, platforms, and infrastructure, balancing speed, cost, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Data teams to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions that support university partners and learner success.
• Lead architectural reviews and establish standards, patterns, and best practices that enable teams to build consistently and efficiently across the organization.
• Own and operate the Architecture Review Board (ARB), defining governance processes, decision criteria, and documentation practices (e.g., architecture decision records) to guide technical direction.
• Ensure AI and platform solutions are built on reliable, well-governed data by collaborating closely with data and analytics teams on data quality, access, and compliance.
• Identify and mitigate architectural risks early, proactively addressing scalability, performance, and reliability challenges before they impact delivery.
• Mentor and elevate senior engineers, fostering engineering excellence and strengthening architectural capability across the organization.
• Contribute to hiring and growing the architecture practice, helping build a high-performing team aligned to Risepoint's mission and long-term technology strategy.

What Success Looks Like

• Establishes a clear, scalable architecture for generative AI that enables teams to efficiently build and deliver high-quality, reliable features across the platform.
• Drives measurable improvements in AI performance and consistency by implementing strong evaluation frameworks, experimentation practices, and feedback loops.
• Influences technical direction across teams, ensuring solutions are aligned, well-governed, and support Risepoint's mission to expand access to high-quality, workforce-relevant education.

How Impact Will Be Measured

• Establish the AI architecture foundation: Define and implement core architectural patterns, standards, and governance (including the Architecture Review Board and ADRs) that enable multiple teams to consistently build and scale GenAI solutions.
• Operationalize AI quality and experimentation: Launch evaluation frameworks, experimentation capabilities, and feedback loops that drive measurable improvements in model performance, reliability, and responsible AI usage.
• Drive cross-functional adoption and impact: Partner with Product, Engineering, and Data teams to deliver production-ready AI use cases that demonstrate clear value for university partners and learners, while influencing technical direction across the organization.

Experience That Matters Most

• Deep technical and architectural expertise: 10+ years of software engineering experience, including time in a principal or staff architect role, with a proven track record of designing and scaling complex, cloud-native systems and setting technical direction across multiple teams.
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML and GenAI systems: Demonstrated experience building and deploying LLM-based applications in production, including familiarity with vector databases, embedding pipelines, RAG patterns, and model evaluation frameworks, along with a strong understanding of responsible AI and data governance.
• Cross-functional leadership and influence: Ability to translate business needs into technical solutions, influence without direct authority, and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders; experience mentoring engineers and contributing to building high-performing teams.

Experience That's Great To Have

• Experience in EdTech, higher education, or scaled SaaS environments, with an understanding of building multi-tenant platforms that serve diverse users and partners.
• Familiarity with modern data, experimentation, or AI platforms (e.g., Databricks, Optimizely) or experience building internal developer platforms and tooling that improve team velocity.
• Experience leading through transformation, including evolving business processes and driving adoption of new technologies (such as AI) to enable growth, improve efficiency, and support organizational change.

Risepoint is an equal-opportunity employer and supports a diverse and inclusive workforce.