Job description

AI/ML Architect – Principal   **** Please note: This role is not eligible for 100% remote work. Employees must live within a commutable distance of a Slalom Office and must be willing to be onsite at the client and/or Slalom office when needed up to 3 days a week. **** Who You’ll Work With At Slalom, we co-create modern technology and software products with clients who are accelerating their digital transformation journeys. We blend design, product engineering, analytics, automation, and AI-native delivery to build intelligent products and platforms that can operate safely at enterprise scale. As an AI/ML Architect, you’ll design and deliver production-grade AI systems that combine machine learning, generative AI, agentic workflows, modern data platforms, and cloud-native engineering across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. You’ll partner with clients to shape strategy, define secure and governed architectures, and move AI solutions from experimentation into reliable business operations. What You’ll Do • Architect and deliver enterprise-scale AI systems spanning data products, retrieval pipelines, model orchestration, agentic workflows, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, optimization, and lifecycle management. • Design secure, scalable, cloud-native and hybrid architectures across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, including modern AI platform services such as Amazon Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry, Google Vertex AI, and enterprise data platforms. • Lead applied AI solution design across generative AI, agentic AI, multimodal AI, advanced RAG, knowledge assistants, prediction, optimization, computer vision, and decision-support use cases. • Enable production GenAI and agentic AI adoption, including advanced RAG, tool/function calling, structured outputs, workflow orchestration, model routing, prompt and context engineering, memory patterns, and human-in-the-loop controls. • Define AI evaluation, observability, and reliability patterns, including offline test sets, automated evals, tracing, hallucination detection, quality scoring, latency/cost monitoring, feedback loops, and regression testing. • Champion Responsible AI and AI security practices, including governance, explainability, privacy, bias mitigation, guardrails, data protection, threat modeling, access controls, auditability, and compliance-by-design. • Evaluate emerging models, platforms, frameworks, standards, and deployment patterns, providing practical recommendations based on use case fit, enterprise readiness, cost, risk, and operational complexity. • Lead and mentor cross-functional delivery teams of data engineers, AI engineers, ML engineers, software engineers, architects, and consultants, ensuring on-time, high-quality outcomes. • Support business development through proposals, client pitches, solution accelerators, reference architectures, technical points of view, and thought leadership. • Coach and mentor junior consultants, fostering a culture of continuous learning, engineering discipline, responsible innovation, and practical AI adoption across the AI/ML practice. What You’ll Bring • 6+ years of experience implementing ML/AI solutions in production, including classical ML, deep learning, generative AI, or agentic AI systems. • 3+ years of experience in professional consulting or IT services, with proven ability to lead client-facing technical engagements. • Hands-on experience designing production AI systems that combine models, data, retrieval, orchestration, APIs, security controls, observability, and user experience into an end-to-end architecture. • Deep understanding of modern GenAI patterns, including advanced RAG, embeddings, vector and hybrid search, re-ranking, knowledge graphs, tool/function calling, structured outputs, context engineering, and multimodal inputs. • Experience with agentic AI architecture patterns, including single-agent and multi-agent workflows, supervisor/worker patterns, state and memory management, workflow orchestration, human approval gates, and safe action execution. • Proficiency with modern AI engineering frameworks and tools such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, Haystack, CrewAI, Hugging Face, or comparable open-source and cloud-native frameworks. • Strong programming skills in Python and modern software engineering practices, with familiarity in APIs, event-driven patterns, test automation, infrastructure as code, and scalable service design. • Proficiency in cloud AI/ML platforms and services such as Amazon Bedrock, AWS SageMaker, Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, Google Vertex AI, and related model hosting, retrieval, agent, and evaluation capabilities. • Experience with enterprise data and AI ecosystems such as Databricks, Snowflake, Spark, Kafka, dbt, vector databases, lakehouse architectures, and modern data governance patterns. • Experience with MLOps, LLMOps, CI/CD, model and prompt versioning, automated evaluation, observability, containerization, Kubernetes, serverless deployment, and cost/performance optimization. • Strong understanding of AI architecture tradeoffs, including model selection, retrieval strategy, latency, accuracy, security, privacy, scalability, cost, vendor lock-in, and operating model implications. • Ability to communicate complex AI concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders, translating architecture choices into business value, delivery risk, and executive-level decisions. • Experience managing delivery teams and shaping AI/ML roadmaps, reference architectures, implementation backlogs, and adoption plans for enterprise clients. • Strong problem-solving, critical thinking, and business acumen, with the judgment to distinguish viable production solutions from prototype-only patterns. About Us Slalom is a fiercely human business and technology consulting company that leads with outcomes to bring more value, in all ways, always. From strategy through delivery, our agile teams across 52 offices in 12 countries partner with clients to co-create powerful customer experiences, modern ways of working, and meaningful impact. What sets us apart? We believe work should be challenging and fulfilling, not perfect, but possible. That’s why we prioritize purpose, flexibility, connection, and recognition, so our people can thrive and love what they do, most days. Compensation and Benefits Slalom prides itself on helping team members thrive in their work and life. As a result, Slalom is proud to invest in benefits that include meaningful time off and paid holidays, parental leave, 401(k) with a match, a range of choices for highly subsidized health, dental, & vision coverage, adoption and fertility assistance, and short/long-term disability. We also offer yearly $350 reimbursement account for any well-being-related expenses, as well as discounted home, auto, and pet insurance. Slalom is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For this role, we are hiring at the Principal level and targeted base pay salary range as follows: • East Bay, San Francisco, Silicon Valley: $200,000-250,000 • Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Seattle: $171,000 - $214,000 • All other locations: $157,000 - $196,000 In addition, individuals may be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. Actual compensation will depend upon an individual’s skills, experience, qualifications, location, and other relevant factors. The salary pay range is subject to change and may be modified at any time. We are committed to pay transparency and compliance with applicable laws. If you have questions or concerns about the pay range or other compensation information in this posting, please contact us at: peopleone@slalom.com . We will accept applicants until October 31st, 2026 or until the position is filled. EEO and Accommodations Slalom is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to attracting, developing and retaining highly qualified talent who empower our innovative teams through unique perspectives and experiences. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Slalom will also consider qualified applications with criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. Slalom welcomes and encourages applications from individuals with disabilities. Reasonable accommodations are available for candidates during all aspects of the selection process. Please advise the talent acquisition team or contact accomodationrequest@slalom.com if you require accommodations during the interview process. Locations: Denver, CO; Los Angeles, CA; Orange County, CA; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; Salt Lake City, UT; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA

Requirements

Must-haves

AI/ML Architect – Principal
Who You’ll Work With
What You’ll Do
Architect and deliver enterprise-scale AI systems spanning data products, retrieval pipelines, model orchestration, agentic workflows, evaluation, deployment, monitoring, optimization, and lifecycle management.
Lead applied AI solution design across generative AI, agentic AI, multimodal AI, advanced RAG, knowledge assistants, prediction, optimization, computer vision, and decision-support use cases.
Champion Responsible AI and AI security practices, including governance, explainability, privacy, bias mitigation, guardrails, data protection, threat modeling, access controls, auditability, and compliance-by-design.
Evaluate emerging models, platforms, frameworks, standards, and deployment patterns, providing practical recommendations based on use case fit, enterprise readiness, cost, risk, and operational complexity.
Lead and mentor cross-functional delivery teams of data engineers, AI engineers, ML engineers, software engineers, architects, and consultants, ensuring on-time, high-quality outcomes.
Support business development through proposals, client pitches, solution accelerators, reference architectures, technical points of view, and thought leadership.
Coach and mentor junior consultants, fostering a culture of continuous learning, engineering discipline, responsible innovation, and practical AI adoption across the AI/ML practice.
What You’ll Bring
6+ years of experience implementing ML/AI solutions in production, including classical ML, deep learning, generative AI, or agentic AI systems.
3+ years of experience in professional consulting or IT services, with proven ability to lead client-facing technical engagements.
Hands-on experience designing production AI systems that combine models, data, retrieval, orchestration, APIs, security controls, observability, and user experience into an end-to-end architecture.
Proficiency with modern AI engineering frameworks and tools such as LangChain, LangGraph, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, Haystack, CrewAI, Hugging Face, or comparable open-source and cloud-native frameworks.
Strong programming skills in Python and modern software engineering practices, with familiarity in APIs, event-driven patterns, test automation, infrastructure as code, and scalable service design.
Experience with enterprise data and AI ecosystems such as Databricks, Snowflake, Spark, Kafka, dbt, vector databases, lakehouse architectures, and modern data governance patterns.
Experience with MLOps, LLMOps, CI/CD, model and prompt versioning, automated evaluation, observability, containerization, Kubernetes, serverless deployment, and cost/performance optimization.
Strong understanding of AI architecture tradeoffs, including model selection, retrieval strategy, latency, accuracy, security, privacy, scalability, cost, vendor lock-in, and operating model implications.
Ability to communicate complex AI concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders, translating architecture choices into business value, delivery risk, and executive-level decisions.
Experience managing delivery teams and shaping AI/ML roadmaps, reference architectures, implementation backlogs, and adoption plans for enterprise clients.
Strong problem-solving, critical thinking, and business acumen, with the judgment to distinguish viable production solutions from prototype-only patterns.

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Keywords to mirror

aimlmachine learningawsazurepythonci/cdkubernetesagile

Platform: slalom
Effort: medium

Benefits

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Dental

Vision

401(K)

Parental Leave