AI Technical Architect

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Business Unit: Rush Medical Center

Hospital: Rush University Medical Center

Department: D&IS Innovation

Work Type: Full Time (Total FTE between 0.9 and 1.0)

Shift: Shift 1

Work Schedule: 8 Hr (8:00:00 AM - 5:00:00 PM)

Rush offers exceptional rewards and benefits learn more at our Rush benefits page (

Pay Range: $41.88 - $70.36 per hour
Rush salaries are determined by many factors including, but not limited to, education, job-related experience and skills, as well as internal equity and industry specific market data. The pay range for each role reflects Rush's anticipated wage or salary reasonably expected to be offered for the position. Offers may vary depending on the circumstances of each case.

Summary:
The Enterprise AI Architect is responsible for designing, governing, and enabling scalable, secure, and compliant artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and analytics architectures across the healthcare enterprise. This role defines technical standards, integration patterns, and architectural guardrails for AI solutions, ensuring alignment with clinical workflows, enterprise platforms, data strategy, cybersecurity, and regulatory requirements.

The Enterprise AI Architect serves as a senior technical authority bridging data engineering, AI/ML, infrastructure, applications, and cybersecurity, and supports teams from initial design through production operations.

This is a full-time role reporting to the Director of AI & Innovation and working closely with AI, Data, Security, Clinical Informatics, and Operations teams. The role is a core member of the Rush AI Center of Excellence.

Location: Remote or Hybrid. Periodic travel to Chicago is required for team and enterprise events.

Other information:
Required Job Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent experience.
8+ years of experience in IT, data, or solution architecture roles.
3+ years designing or supporting AI/ML platforms or advanced analytics solutions.
Hands-on experience designing enterprise-scale data and AI architectures.
Experience operating in complex, regulated environments such as healthcare.
Strong relationship-building skills and a collaborative, outcomes-focused mindset.

Preferred Job Qualifications:
Experience architecting AI/ML solutions in healthcare or life sciences.
Familiarity with EHR platforms (e.g., Epic) and healthcare data models.
Experience with cloud platforms, data lakes/warehouses, and MLOps tooling.
Knowledge of AI governance, responsible AI frameworks, and model risk management.
Architecture certifications or advanced technical credentials.

Physical Demands:
This is a computer/desk based job with occasional onsite visits needed

Competencies:
Enterprise and solution architecture leadership
Deep AI and analytics technical expertise
Systems thinking and integration design
Risk-aware and compliance-driven decision making
Clear and effective technical communication
Ability to balance innovation, scalability, security, and regulatory requirements
Strategic yet hands-on when needed
Detail-oriented with strong architectural discipline
Comfortable influencing without direct authority
Outcome-focused and accountable
Thrives in fast-evolving AI environments
Positive attitude and willingness to do what it takes to get the job done right
Ability to create strong working relationships with business partners across the organization

Disclaimer:
The above is intended to describe the general content of and requirements for the performance of this job. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of duties, responsibilities or requirements.

Responsibilities:
AI Architecture & Technical Strategy
Define end-to-end architectures for AI solutions, from data ingestion through model deployment, monitoring, and retirement.
Establish and maintain enterprise AI reference architectures, design patterns, and architectural standards.
Ensure alignment with enterprise IT, cloud, data, integration, and application strategies.
Evaluate emerging AI technologies, platforms, and tools for healthcare applicability and enterprise readiness.

Data, Platform & Integration Architecture
Design scalable data architectures supporting AI/ML, analytics, and real-time decision support.
Architect integrations across EHRs, enterprise systems, data platforms, and external services.
Support healthcare interoperability standards including HL7, FHIR, APIs, and SMART on FHIR where applicable.
Ensure data lineage, quality, reliability, and observability across AI pipelines.

AI/ML Enablement & Lifecycle Support
Define architectural approaches for model development, deployment, versioning, monitoring, and retraining.
Support MLOps practices including CI/CD, environment separation, automation, and reproducibility.
Ensure architectures support explainability, auditability, performance monitoring, and model validation.
Partner with data scientists and engineers to translate business and clinical use cases into technical designs.

Security, Privacy, Compliance & Responsible AI
Embed security-by-design principles into AI architectures including IAM, network controls, encryption, and secrets management.
Ensure compliance with HIPAA, data privacy, cybersecurity, and healthcare regulatory requirements.
Design for PHI protection including minimum necessary access, de-identification and pseudonymization patterns, and auditable access controls.
Support responsible AI practices including bias mitigation, transparency, explainability, and governance controls.
Collaborate with cybersecurity, risk, compliance, and legal teams on architecture reviews and third-party/vendor AI risk assessments.
Partner with clinical and operational stakeholders to ensure patient safety, clinical appropriateness, change management, and fallback behavior for AI-enabled workflows.

Governance & Technical Oversight
Participate in AI governance bodies, architecture review boards, and technical decision forums.
Provide technical guidance and approvals for AI solutions moving from pilot to production.
Create and maintain architectural documentation including reference architectures, standards, decision records, threat models, and data flow diagrams.
Identify and manage architectural risks, dependencies, and technical debt.

Clarification of Architectural Role
This role includes both strategic and hands-on responsibilities:
Define standards and guardrails while also contributing to reference implementations.
Review and approve designs while partnering directly with delivery teams.
Maintain ownership of enterprise AI architecture decisions while advising product and project teams.
Engage at a design and code-adjacent level (Python/SQL, pipelines, cloud services) as needed.

Rush is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics.