Principal AI Cloud Architect – Azure Cloud

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in North Carolina, +5 more states.

📋 Description

• Define and implement the AI strategy and roadmap for the Cloud business unit.

• Build, lead, and mentor a team of 2–6 AI and Cloud engineers.

• Design multi-agent systems for AIOps, which include anomaly detection, event correlation, ITSM ticket triage, and self-healing runbooks.

• Oversee the design of agents for the generation, review, and validation of Terraform and Bicep infrastructure code within CI/CD pipelines.

• Create FinOps agents to identify cost anomalies, opportunities for rightsizing, and idle resources.

• Develop security and compliance agents for posture assessment, configuration drift detection, and audit evidence collection.

• Establish AI governance that includes human approvals, access controls, guardrails, audit logging, and responsible AI practices.

• Collaborate with business stakeholders, clients, and engineering teams to deliver comprehensive Cloud and AI solutions.

• Lead the architecture for Azure Databricks and data platforms that support AI workloads.

• Enhance monitoring, logging, observability, resiliency, and disaster recovery for Cloud platforms and agents.

• Set architecture standards, reusable agent patterns, and reference architectures.

• Convert technical concepts and AI adoption outcomes into business value for clients and executives.

• Assess emerging AI technologies, frameworks, and models.

• Provide status updates regarding the roadmap and adoption strategy.

• Travel up to 20% for client meetings, project tasks, or team collaboration.

⛳️ Requirements

• 15+ years of experience in IT, with a minimum of 10 years focusing on Cloud architecture (preferably Azure).

• 3+ years of hands-on experience with AI/ML, including at least 2 years in building and deploying LLM-based or agentic AI solutions in a production environment.

• Experience in leading and developing engineering teams, including hiring, coaching, and setting technical direction.

• Practical experience with Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, and agent frameworks.

• Working knowledge of agent design patterns, including tool use, multi-agent orchestration, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and Model Context Protocol (MCP).

• Experience implementing AI or automation solutions in Cloud operations (AIOps, automated remediation, Infrastructure as Code generation, FinOps, or security posture management).

• Proven ability to work directly with clients and cross-functional development teams to deliver enterprise solutions.

• In-depth knowledge of Microsoft Azure services, including compute, storage, security, and platform services.

• Hands-on experience with Azure Databricks and modern data architecture (data lakes, ETL/ELT, streaming, lakehouse).

• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the capability to influence both technical and executive stakeholders.

• Preferred: Experience with AWS or Google Cloud in addition to Azure.

• Preferred: Experience in healthcare or other regulated sectors, including HIPAA compliance and management of protected health information (PHI).

• Preferred: Familiarity with AI governance frameworks like the NIST AI Risk Management Framework.

• Preferred: Experience with LLMOps practices, such as agent evaluation, prompt and model versioning, and monitoring agent performance in production.

• Preferred: Relevant certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Azure AI Engineer Associate.

• Excellent communication abilities with a knack for explaining complex technical and AI concepts clearly.

• Capability to provide concise and clear status reports regarding the roadmap and overall adoption strategy.

• Strong leadership, collaboration, analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and client relationship skills.

• Pragmatic approach to AI adoption, balancing innovation with security, reliability, and risk management.

• Commitment to quality, operational excellence, and ongoing improvement.

🏝️ Benefits

• Up to 20% travel may be required for client meetings, project work, or team collaboration.