Principal AI Platform Architect

2 hours ago

Foster City, CA, USAStaff+

Base Salary

$185k - $220k/yr

Responsibilities

Define the architectural vision, reference architectures, principles, and guardrails for enterprise AI capabilities.
Design and implement agentic runtimes, tool integrations, model gateways, retrieval and grounding systems, policy enforcement, identity, and secure data access.
Own the end-to-end design and build of a modern lakehouse and enterprise AI ecosystem.
Develop and optimize batch and streaming data ingestion, transformation, orchestration, modeling, governance, lineage, and quality frameworks.
Establish non-functional requirements, SLOs, validation approaches, and controls for reliability, performance, cost efficiency, and scalability.
Build secure, compliant cloud-based data infrastructure, APIs, and reusable platform services for AI and application teams.
Enable structured data access, feature pipelines, embeddings, and vector capabilities for AI readiness.
Contribute to MLOps and LLMOps readiness through pipeline standardization, monitoring, and lifecycle planning.
Translate business and operational requirements into scalable AI flow architectures and guide teams from concept through production.

15+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, or data architecture.
Deep expertise in distributed systems, cloud-native design, and modern AI architectures including LLM serving, RAG, and agentic orchestration.
Experience building production AI systems with observability, reliability engineering, and cost controls.
Proven experience building or transforming enterprise-scale data platforms or lakehouse architectures.
Strong hands-on experience with batch and streaming data pipelines, distributed data processing systems, and AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Experience with data modeling, governance, lineage, and data quality frameworks.
Strong programming skills in Python, SQL, or equivalent.
Understanding of security, access control, and enterprise data management principles.
Excellent executive communication skills and the ability to drive decisions under ambiguity.
Hands-on architectural credibility and the ability to guide teams from concept to production.
Preferred experience supporting AI/ML or GenAI workloads and familiarity with vector databases, embeddings, or feature engineering pipelines.
Preferred exposure to event-driven or real-time data architectures and complex enterprise application ecosystems such as CRM, ERP, and HR systems.
Prior experience in product-based, high-scale, or global environments is valued.

Comprehensive and highly competitive benefits package.
Opportunity to build the enterprise data and AI foundation from scratch.
High-impact, high-visibility role influencing long-term strategy.
Work on scalable, real-world AI enablement.
Base salary range of $185,000-$220,000 per year, excluding incentive compensation and potential equity grants.

1,001-5,000 employees