Enterprise AI Architect Position

Enterprise AI Architect Position

Location: Columbus, Ohio

Duration: 6-12 Months - Remote (But periodic onsite visits at Columbus-OH ~ Estimated 10%, quarterly)

About the team

Client's AI Transformation organization is building the company's enterprise AI capability on a vendor-agnostic, capability-based reference architecture: a governed enterprise MCP gateway, an Azure AI foundation, and a portfolio of production AI use cases anchored to business outcomes. You'll join the AI Architecture & Engineering team as one of its three founding members, shaping how a global enterprise adopts AI from the ground up.

Job role

You'll own solution architecture for Client's AI portfolio, turning an established capability-based architecture into designs that ship. Every AI build, integration, and vendor proof-of-concept passes through your designs. This is a hands-on seat: you'll write code to test your own designs and stay close to what ships.

What you'll do

• Own solution design for AI builds and vendor proofs-of-concept: integration topology, identity and authorization flows (including SAP identity passthrough via Microsoft Entra ID), data flows, and security review
• Prototype and validate your designs in code - reference implementations and spikes - and partner with engineering through build
• Own the capability occupancy map: assess proposed tools and builds against capability slots to inform investment decisions
• Architect the Azure AI foundation and the governed MCP gateway: landing zone, network and identity patterns, private connectivity, and a multi-tier model portfolio with attention to data retention and residency
• Lead the technical side of vendor and model evaluations: fit assessments and recommendations
• Build a reusable solution-pattern library so each successive use case is cheaper to design than the last

Your first 90 days

• Deliver the solution design for the first production use case, prototype included, and see it through build
• Stand up the capability occupancy map
• Take a vendor evaluation end-to-end, from technical assessment through recommendation

Required qualifications

• 10+ years in software or solution architecture, including 5+ years in enterprise integration within large organizations
• Current, working code fluency (Python or TypeScript): enough to build prototypes yourself and review pull requests critically
• Deep identity and access expertise: Microsoft Entra ID, OAuth 2.0/OIDC, service principals, and identity passthrough or delegated-authorization patterns across system boundaries
• SAP landscape integration experience: interface patterns, middleware, authorization concepts
• Hands-on design of production LLM systems: retrieval architectures, agentic workflows, tool-use protocols (Model Context Protocol or equivalent), model routing
• Azure depth: landing zones, hub-and-spoke networking, private endpoints, Azure AI services
• Experience leading security and compliance reviews for regulated enterprise data
• A shipping record: systems you designed that ran in production, and the ability to walk through what broke and what you changed
• Writing that lands with both executives and engineers: architecture decision records and decision memos
• AI assistants in your daily workflow - we work with Claude and Microsoft Copilot, and expect you to design and document with them, not around them

Preferred qualifications

• Manufacturing, chemicals, or other regulated/industrial-sector experience
• Capability-based or domain-driven enterprise architecture practice
• Architecture experience with enterprise integration/automation (iPaaS) platforms
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert or equivalent
• Experience operating alongside consulting- or SI-led transformation programs.