AI Architect

Shift Technology; Paris; Hybrid; EUR 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible remote and hybrid options

Competitive salary with bonus

Learning and development opportunities

Generous PTO and holidays

Mental health benefits

MAD Days

Job summary

Shift Technology is seeking an AI Architect to define and lead the technical vision for an agentic AI platform. You will drive the architecture of backend AI services, collaborate with data scientists and leadership, and scale the core AI strategy across the product ecosystem.

Expect high-visibility, mission-critical work shaping the future of Shift’s agent-first offering. The role requires deep expertise in modern AI ecosystems, production system design, and enterprise cloud environments

Qualifications

• Hands-on expertise with agentic frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI).
• Experience with MCP, tool-calling integrations, and structured LLM outputs.
• Strong grasp of vector databases, embeddings, prompt engineering, and LLMOps.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical architecture for Shift’s agentic AI ecosystem.
• Architect production AI services to serve and scale AI agents.
• Guide engineering and design to ensure alignment with system design.
• Optimize model performance, latency, and compute efficiency.
• Establish governance, security, and observability (LLMOps) for audit-ready deployments.

Skills

Agentic AI frameworks

Model Context Protocol

LLMOps

Vector databases

Prompt engineering

Python

Cloud architecture

System design

Azure

Microservices

Tools

LangChain

LlamaIndex

AutoGen

CrewAI

Azure

Docker

Kubernetes

REST/OpenAPI

Terraform

Job description

Shift delivers AI agents that transform insurers' most critical work. By combining deep industry expertise and unmatched data resources, Shift provides proven results that have earned the trust of hundreds of the world's leading insurers. Our insurance-grade AI is accurate, explainable, and secure—empowering human experts to move with unmatched speed, total confidence, and a renewed focus on the people they serve.

Our culture is built on innovation, trust, and a drive to transform the insurance industry through our SaaS platform. We come from more than 50 different countries and cultures and together we are creating the future of insurance.

Learn more at www.shift-technology.com

Shift delivers AI agents that transform insurers' most critical work. By combining deep industry expertise and unmatched data resources, Shift provides proven results that have earned the trust of hundreds of the world's leading insurers. Our insurance-grade AI is accurate, explainable, and secure—empowering human experts to move with unmatched speed, total confidence, and a renewed focus on the people they serve.

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Our culture is built on innovation, trust, and a drive to transform the insurance industry through our SaaS platform. We come from more than 50 different countries and cultures and together we are creating the future of insurance.

Learn more at www.shift-technology.com

ABOUT THE ROLE

Architects at Shift are the technical leaders who define the overarching vision across the various squads responsible for building and maintaining our platform’s domains. You will be expected to devise innovative solutions for our clients' ever-evolving needs, maintain a continuous technology watch to keep our platform at the absolute state of the art, and act as the guardian of system design quality and the long-term robustness of our tech stack.

As our very first AI Architect, you will lead the overarching technical vision and architecture for Shift’s agentic AI capabilities. This is a high-visibility, mission-critical position driving our shift toward an advanced, agent-first product ecosystem. You will work closely with engineering talents, data scientists, and senior leadership to define, build, and scale our core AI strategy. This includes integrating MCPs, robust experiment tracking and observability frameworks, advanced vector databases and embeddings pipelines, RAG architectures, and sophisticated agent orchestration layers.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Drive strategy & execution: define and spearhead the technical architecture for Shift’s agentic AI ecosystem, translating high-level product goals into sustainable, scalable technical implementations
• Architect production AI services: lead the architecture of the backend services required to serve, manage, and scale AI agents in production environments
• Guide engineering & design: partner with agent-focused squads to review technical designs, enforce engineering standards, and ensure alignment with the broader system design
• Optimize operational quality: drive continuous improvements across model performance, output quality, latency, context-window efficiency, and token usage/compute budget governance
• Integrate emerging standards: benchmark and integrate emerging paradigms, such as Model Context Protocol (MCP), advanced RAG patterns, vector pipelines, and agent orchestration frameworks, into our production stack
• Ensure robustness & compliance: establish governance, security, and observability frameworks (LLMOps) to guarantee our AI deployments remain audit-ready, secure, and highly reliable.
  

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

We are seeking a senior technical leader who combines a deep mastery of modern AI ecosystems with rock-solid production system design skills in enterprise cloud environments (specifically Azure).

• AI & data foundations
  • Hands‑on expertise with agentic frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, AutoGen, CrewAI) and advanced RAG architectures
  • Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), tool‑calling integrations, and structured LLM outputs
  • Strong grasp of vector databases, embedding strategies, prompt engineering, and LLMOps (observability, evaluation, and experiment tracking)
• System design & infrastructure
  • Cloud architecture: deep expertise in the Azure ecosystem
  • Microservices & APIs: strong API design principles (REST, OpenAPI, API Gateways) and containerization experience (Docker/Podman, Kubernetes)
  • Event-driven design: solid understanding of event‑driven architectures (Azure Event Hub, Azure Service Bus, or Apache Kafka)
  • Programming & IaC: high proficiency in Python, paired with strong experience in C# (.NET), Java, C++, or similar - and hands‑on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or Bicep)

At Shift Technology, we hire talented people and we believe that how we get things done matters as much as what we achieve. We have built a list of 10 High-Impact Behaviors representing the mindset and actions that define success for all Shifters. Some of them would be key to succeed in this role:

• Make things simpler: you have the ability to clearly explain complex architecture to both technical (data scientists/engineers) and non-technical stakeholders
• Communicate with impact: you have proven influencing skills paired with solid business acumen to help you drive initiatives and to create a consensus building with all levels in the organization - you are a true leader!
• Help others grow and succeed: you have the desire to upskill team members via code reviews and design sessions.
• Jump in and get things done:you are proactive by nature and you do not wait for something to happen; driving is your motto!Test & learn new things: you are deeply passionate about your field and you stay updated on new technologies, best practices, what peers do better/differently, and you are able to translate it to Shift language

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

• A first fit call with our Talent Acquisition Specialist
• A couple of interviews to test your leadership & technical skills
• A final round at our office with multiple interviews inc. with some of our co‑founders

To support our permanent, full time employees at every stage of their careers and lives, we provide a competitive total rewards and benefits package. Here are the global benefits we’d like to highlight:

• Flexible remote and hybrid working options
• Competitive Salary and a variable component tied to personal and company performance
• Multiple Learning and Development opportunities, including Focus Fridays, a half-day each month to focus on learning and personal growth
• Generous PTO and paid holidays
• Mental health benefits
• 2 MAD Days per year (Make A Difference Days for paid volunteering)

Additional benefits may be offered by country, based on your eligibility - ask your recruiter for more information. Intern and Apprentice positions may receive some of these benefits - ask your recruiter for more details.

AI tools are used to help review applications for this role. Read our AI in Recruitment Notice for what the AI considers, how to request a human review, and our most recent bias audit.

At Shift we strive to be a diverse and inclusive workforce. We welcome applications from and hire people who will contribute to the diversity of our company, without regard to race, color, religion, marital status, age, national or ethnic origin, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other non-merit criteria. Shift Technology is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our application and employment process. Should you require accommodation, please email [e-mail] and we will work with you to meet your accessibility needs.