Lead AI Architect – Data Platform

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Canada, +1 more country.

📋 Description

• Design, develop, and manage Banyan's centralized data and AI platform.

• Define and take ownership of the target-state data and AI architecture.

• Create and implement an AWS-centric data lake featuring patterns for storage, cataloging, querying, ingestion, modeling, and lineage.

• Set up the AI experimentation layer with access to Anthropic, OpenAI, and other large language models (LLMs).

• Establish data contracts, schema standards, naming conventions, and a scalable domain model.

• Collaborate with Senior Business Analysts in Finance, M&A, and Business Development to translate use cases into platform requirements.

• Define security, privacy, and AI safety protocols for Personally Identifiable Information (PII), regulated data, and confidential portfolio information.

• Write code, deploy infrastructure, conduct code reviews, and troubleshoot production issues.

• Build and lead a small platform team, including hiring contractors and mentoring team members.

• Take responsibility for platform reliability, observability, cost management, SLOs, and usage monitoring.

• Represent Banyan's AI and data architecture to executives, portfolio companies, and external partners.

• Achieve first-year goals, including a governed AWS data lake, onboarded functional verticals, documented architecture standards, a production AI use case, and initial team hires.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 10 years of experience in building data and AI platforms in production at a significant scale.

• Extensive expertise in AWS, including S3, IAM, KMS, networking, Glue, Lake Formation, Athena, Redshift, SageMaker, Bedrock, and EKS or ECS.

• Strong skills in data architecture: lakehouse patterns, open table formats (Iceberg, Delta, or Hudi), data modeling, ingestion frameworks, orchestration, and lineage.

• Familiarity with modern AI/ML platform patterns: feature stores, model registries, experiment tracking, prompt and evaluation frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation, and basic agentic workflows.

• Knowledge of AI safety, encompassing data classification, PII handling, access tiering, evaluation, and model-risk controls.

• Proficient in Python and SQL.

• Experience with Terraform or AWS CDK.

• Capable of reading logs, resolving issues, and submitting pull requests.

• Player-coach experience in leading small teams, mentoring engineers, setting hiring standards, and fostering professional development.

• Excellent communication skills with both engineers and executives.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field.

• A Master's degree is advantageous but not mandatory.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive compensation.

• Performance bonuses.

• Comprehensive benefits package.

• Significant long-term upside.

• Opportunity to work on greenfield projects with a real budget.

• Genuine ownership of the AI and data architecture for an entire holding company.

• Long-term focus.

• Accountable autonomy.

• Inclusive workplace culture.

• Equal employment opportunities.