Senior AI Architecture Lead

The Citation Group; Newsham; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Citation Group is seeking an AI Architect to own the AI/Data architecture across the delivery area, reporting to the Chief AI Officer. This senior role requires 6+ years in software, data, or platform engineering/architecture with hands-on AI production experience.

You will define architectural standards, lead model selection, manage token economics, ensure data readiness, and govern AI design across teams, partnerships, and platforms to maintain architectural integrity.

Qualifications

• Senior — 6+ years in software, data, or platform engineering/architecture.
• Meaningful hands-on time on production AI systems, not just pilots.

Responsibilities

• Architectural standards and patterns for AI systems.
• Own the design patterns Citation builds its AI systems to: retrieval and grounding approaches for systems that need Citation's own knowledge rather than a model's general training, agent orchestration patterns and tool-calling conventions for multi-step and multi-agent work, prompt construction and guardrail design, and the routing logic that decides which model handles which step.
• Model selection: open-weight vs. closed, and why — with a documented framework weighed per workload.
• Tokenomics — cost as an architectural input, including token cost modeling, model routing, caching, and cost governance.
• Data architecture and readiness across Salesforce, Atlas, Snowflake, and integration layers; flag readiness issues before delivery blockers.
• Design authority and governance — approval path for AI architectural patterns and material departures from standards.
• Proof of concept and technical validation — scope, success criteria, and evaluation against delivery constraints.
• Third-party delivery oversight — review proposals and Statements of Work before commitments, with design reviews during delivery.
• Production quality, observability, and cost — monitoring, evaluation, and incident response for AI systems.
• Security and compliance — involve Security from the start and set the guardrails.

Job description

The Citation Group is seeking an AI Architect to own the AI/Data architecture across the delivery area, reporting to the Chief AI Officer. This senior role requires 6+ years in software, data, or platform engineering/architecture with hands-on AI production experience.

You will define architectural standards, lead model selection, manage token economics, ensure data readiness, and govern AI design across teams, partnerships, and platforms to maintain architectural integrity.