AI Architect

ThinkNorth LLC; Richmond (VA); Remote; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

ThinkNorth LLC seeks an AI Architect to own an API-first platform on Google Cloud, coordinating AI enrichment across Vertex AI, Document AI, and AlloyDB. The role emphasizes scalable design, data-partitioning, and cost-aware decisions.

Lead migration activities, define integration patterns, and ensure security/compliance while mentoring senior engineers and collaborating with stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building large production systems on Google Cloud.
• Strong Java/Spring Boot coding and code review skills.
• Proven track record with data migrations and performance tuning.

Responsibilities

• Define and own AI-enriched platform across GCS, Vertex AI, and AlloyDB.
• Design API-first contracts with OpenAPI versioning and integration patterns.
• Lead migrations, security boundaries, and cost-aware design at scale.
• Provide governance, reviews, and mentorship to engineers.

Skills

Cloud architecture

Java Spring Boot

Data modeling

Event-driven design

Security and IAM

Cloud cost awareness

Stakeholder communication

MLOps / Vertex AI deployment

GCP services

Tools

PostgreSQL/ AlloyDB

MongoDB

Vertex AI

Document AI

GKE

Apigee

Job description

Hi,

Job Title: AI Architect

Location: Richmond, VA (Remote)

Duration: 12 Months

Job Description:

Key responsibilities

• Define and own the solution across GCS Cloud Run GKE PubSub AlloyDB Vertex AI Document AI Apigee and Google Storage Transfer Service
• Design an APIfirst platform with clear contracts OpenAPI versioning and integration patterns for consuming systems Salesforce ERPJDE internal apps
• Solution for scale partitioning and indexing strategy in AlloyDB for hundreds of millions of metadata rows GCS bucketobject layout lifecycle and storageclass policies search performance at volume
• Lead the migration activities buckettobucket file movement and MongoDB AlloyDB metadata migration manifestdriven restartable reconciliationfirst with zero unnecessary data copying
• Lead the security activities Oktabased authNauthZ OIDCSAML token flows for UI vs system clients IAM and serviceaccount boundaries CMEKencryption signed URLs data classification audit trails and compliance requirements
• Own the AI enrichment solutioning selecting the right mix of Document AI processors Vertex AI models and custom extractors per document type and defining integration patterns APIs SDKs eventdriven flows with failure handling and reprocessing
• Define the AI cost and performance model batching strategy model tiering by document complexity and costperdocument targets balanced against extraction accuracy and SLAs
• Produce and review technical artifacts HLDLLD sequence and flow diagrams ADRs
• Provide technical governance design reviews code reviews and mentoring of leadsenior engineers

Required skills experience

• 15 years in software engineering with 5 years in a handson lead role
• Deep Google Cloud Platform experience including at least one largescale production system
• Strong Java Spring Boot background able to review and write production code
• Proven experience with largevolume data or content platforms and complex data migrations
• Strong relational data modelling and performance tuning PostgreSQLAlloyDB working knowledge of MongoDB
• Eventdriven and asynchronous design PubSub API gateway patterns Apigee containerization and Kubernetes GKE
• Enterprise security and identity experience Okta or equivalent
• Excellent written and verbal communication comfortable defending design decisions with senior stakeholders
• Proven experience architecting AIMLenabled applications on cloud Vertex AI Document AI or equivalent modelservice selection integration patterns and costaware design at volume

Nice to have

• Prior work on documentcontent management ECM or recordsmanagement platforms
• Search technology experience fulltext faceted vectorsemantic search with embeddings
• laC Terraform CICD on Google Cloud Platform costoptimization at scale

Google Professional Cloud Architect certification