Technical AI Solution
Architect
San Diego, CA (or Remote) · Hybrid · Full-Time
About Cadre AI
Cadre AI is an AI strategy and integration firm that partners deeply with organizations to transform workflows, streamline operations, and deliver measurable business outcomes. We operate at the intersection of strategy, engineering, and adoption, ensuring AI delivers real, lasting impact for the companies we serve.
The Role
You sit at the center of every deal we close, turning a promising sales conversation into a precise, deliverable commitment. After our sales team works with a prospect to narrow 40-50 AI use case possibilities across their business to the 10-15 solutions worth focusing on in the short term, you step in to define exactly what we are building and what the client must provide for the work to succeed.
Some solutions will be similar to items that Cadre has deployed previously and some will be completely new. A critical component of your role is identifying which solutions already exist in the market that we should consider implementing vs. developing a net new solution. If the answer is that we should build the solution, the most important element becomes identifying which existing technical components can be repurposed for these new client use cases, and where we need to undertake new engineering work to deliver the client the optimal outcome. You should be comfortable solutioning in ambiguity to define what the solution looks like and be able to dictate how it should be built to produce a modular or configurable output that can be used down the road for another client.
You own the two documents that make or break an engagement: the client-facing schedule (SOW) that becomes a critical part of our contracting documents, and the internal handover artifact that lets our engineering and delivery teams execute without guesswork.
This is a translation role, not a direct engineering role. You will spend your days moving between client departmental discovery calls with the sales team and the engineering leaders who confirm what is realistic, rapidly building your own intuition for how to scope projects. You are the person who makes ambition and feasibility meet on paper before anything is signed. You will thrive here if you are energized by an airtight scope and a flawless handoff. The work rewards precision, judgment, and the discipline to pin down the assumptions that are critical to our organization running efficiently.
You will run 5-10 engagements in parallel, each lasting 30 to 45 days from kickoff to deal close.
Your work begins early in the cycle, with a high-level feasibility read on opportunities before they are sold, and ends at signature, when you lead the handover that passes the engagement to delivery and engineering. Those internal teams are your real clients: when they can execute exactly what you scoped, you have done the job well.
What You'll Do
Early Feasibility and Opportunity Triage
• Pressure test opportunities at the top of the funnel, giving the sales team a fast, high level read on which solutions we can realistically deliver and which to steer away from.
• Flag hidden technical complexity, data dependencies, and integration risks before they harden into commitments.
• Partner with sales early so the solutions that advance are ones engineering can stand behind.
Solution Shaping and Discovery
• Join client discovery conversations once opportunities have been narrowed to the key solutions worth buying, quickly going deep on requirements, context, and constraints.
• Translate complex client needs into clear, specific solution definitions that the client and our delivery teams understand the same way.
• Serve as the technical voice in the room, reinforcing the sales narrative while keeping every commitment grounded in what we can actually build.
Scoping and the Client Schedule
• Own the external schedule (SOW) that defines deliverables, assumptions, exclusions, client dependencies, and a precise definition of done that holds up after signature.
• Confirm all technical assumptions and estimates with engineering leadership before anything is committed to the client.
• Identify which technical components can be reused and which need to be developed for the engagement, with a strong emphasis on reuse / adaptation to drive efficiency
• Write scopes that protect the company commercially and that delivery can execute without renegotiation.
Engineering and Delivery Handoff
• Refine the internal handover document that carries intent, client priorities, technical approach, and known risks across the signature line.
• Lead the handover conversation that transitions each signed engagement to the delivery and engineering teams post-signature.
• Document handovers in a complete fashion to empower the delivery team to run with them without needing you in the room.
What You Need to Succeed
• 4-7 years in a client-facing technical role such as technical program management, solutions architecture, or forward-deployed engineering, with direct exposure to scoping or shaping work that other people then built.
• A working understanding of AI, machine learning, LLMs, and automation deep enough to judge feasibility and translate complex concepts into plain language, without needing to be the person who writes the code.
• Comfort in assessing the market for solutions when a client pain point is surfaced vs. defaulting to an internal build
• A proven ability to write precise scope documents, statements of work, or schedules that define deliverables, assumptions, and exclusions clearly.
• Experience producing internal high-level technical documentation that another team can begin to execute from.
• Strong requirements-gathering and discovery skills, with a track record of turning ambiguous client conversations into specific, agreed definitions of what will be delivered.
• Ability to design AI solutions with a bias for reusing core architectural components vs. creating truly bespoke solutions
• The judgment and ability to hold the line between commercial ambition and delivery reality, including comfort in telling a motivated sales team when something cannot be scoped as proposed.
• The credibility to earn and keep the trust of engineering leaders, so your assumptions are believed rather than re-litigated.
• Exceptional organization and the ability to run roughly five to ten engagements in parallel on tight 30 to 45 day cycles without letting details slip, including proficiency with ClickUp or similar tools for structured workflows and documentation.
• Comfort operating at the seam between sales, clients, and engineering, serving each without being captured by any one of them.
• Clear, direct written communication, as the documents you produce are the primary product of your work.
• A temperament that finds satisfaction in a clean scope and a flawless handoff rather than in being the hero in the client room.
Why Cadre AI
• Real ownership. The schedules and handovers you write define every engagement we deliver. This is a hinge the whole business turns on, and it is yours.
• AI-native culture. We do not just build AI for clients, we use it to run our own operations. You will work with people who are as obsessed with the tools as you are.
• Access to the frontier. Through partnerships with Anthropic and OpenAI, you will be among the first to experiment with new models and capabilities.
• No bureaucracy. Small pods. Clear accountability. The best idea wins, regardless of who says it.
If you are the person who builds plans everyone can trust, who finds the gaps before they become problems, and who takes pride in work that lets other people succeed, we want to talk to you.