AI Solutions Architect

Hardshell Inc.; Charlottesville (VA); Hybrid; USD 144,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health coverage

Job summary

Hardshell Inc. in Charlottesville, VA, is seeking a solutions architect to join our growing security, data, and AI advisory team. You will drive pilot programs, scope engagements, and guide customers through findings and remediation steps.

This is a hands-on, customer-facing role requiring strong communication, Python scripting capability, and experience with enterprise AI deployments. US citizenship is required for federal work and occasional travel is expected.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in solutions architecture or related roles.
• Experience with security, data, or AI infrastructure products.
• Hands-on with enterprise AI deployments.
• Clear communication with engineers and executives.
• U.S. citizenship required.

Responsibilities

• Run technical discovery with prospects: map their AI knowledge bases, retrieval architecture, data sources, and permission models, and scope what a pilot needs to prove.
• Deliver demonstrations built around the customer's own use cases.
• Lead pilot deployments in customer environments from first integration through the final readout. We aim for first integration in under 24 hours.
• Turn exposure-test findings and telemetry into readouts for security, data, and compliance leaders, mapped to MITRE ATLAS and the frameworks they already report against.
• Own the technical side of conversion, including production architecture, security reviews and questionnaires, and handoff to production.
• Bring what you learn in the field back to engineering and product, in writing, with enough detail to act on.

Skills

Solutions architecture

Security domain knowledge

Python or similar language

Customer relationship management

Effective communication

U.S. citizenship

Tools

RAG pipelines

Vector databases

LLM APIs

Cloud environments

Job description

The role

The security, data, and AI teams we sell to need evidence before they connect AI to sensitive data. You'll produce it. You'll scope pilots, get Hardshell running inside customer environments, and walk their teams through what we found and what to do about it. This is one of our first customer-facing technical roles, and it will shape how every pilot runs from here.

What you'll do

• Run technical discovery with prospects: map their AI knowledge bases, retrieval architecture, data sources, and permission models, and scope what a pilot needs to prove.
• Deliver demonstrations built around the customer's own use cases.
• Lead pilot deployments in customer environments from first integration through the final readout. We aim for first integration in under 24 hours.
• Turn exposure-test findings and telemetry into readouts for security, data, and compliance leaders, mapped to MITRE ATLAS and the frameworks they already report against.
• Own the technical side of conversion, including production architecture, security reviews and questionnaires, and handoff to production.
• Bring what you learn in the field back to engineering and product, in writing, with enough detail to act on.

What you bring

• 5+ years in solutions architecture, solutions engineering, sales engineering, or forward-deployed engineering, ideally for security, data, or AI infrastructure products.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise AI deployments such as RAG pipelines, vector databases, LLM APIs, or AI assistants connected to company data.
• Working knowledge of cloud environments, identity and access management, and how enterprises govern sensitive data.
• Enough coding ability to get an integration working yourself, in Python or a similar language.
• Clear communication with both engineers and executives, and comfort owning a customer relationship.
• U.S. citizenship.

Nice to have

• Experience with customers in regulated industries like financial services and healthcare, or with federal customers.
• Familiarity with MITRE ATLAS, the OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications, or the NIST AI RMF.
• An active security clearance.

The details

• Location: Hybrid in Charlottesville, VA, or remote on Eastern Time.
• Compensation: Up to $160K base salary, plus equity and health coverage.
• Travel: Occasional travel to customer sites during pilots.
• Eligibility: U.S. citizenship is required for this role because of our federal work.