AI Solutions Architect

Shelf; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Equity

Flexible PTO

Health insurance

Job summary

Shelf is seeking an experienced Solutions Architect to act as the technical authority behind complex customer opportunities, translating enterprise data, AI challenges, and security needs into scalable, value-driven solutions.

You will lead technical discovery, design reference architectures, and guide pilots with senior technical stakeholders, driving production-ready deployments and expansion opportunities across accounts.

Qualifications

• 8–12+ years in solutions architecture or related customer-facing technical roles, with a track record of designing complex enterprise solutions.
• Strong command of data modeling, data platforms, ETL/pipelines, LLMs, RAG, and agent-based systems; knowledge graphs/ontologies/semantic tech preferred.
• Deep understanding of enterprise architecture, security, integrations, deployment strategy, and cloud environments across AWS, Azure, and/or GCP.
• Comfortable leading technical conversations with senior stakeholders and translating technology into business value.
• Able to move between executive architecture discussions and hands-on engineering collaboration; familiarity with Python and tools like Claude Code or Cursor is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead Technical Discovery & Solution Design to translate customer data environments and security needs into target architectures.
• Own architecture, security, and deployment evaluations throughout the sales cycle.
• Design and guide Proof-of-Value pilots using real customer data.
• Architect for production deployment and expansion within existing accounts.
• Build reusable reference architectures and practices, feeding insights back to Product and Engineering.

Skills

Solution Architecture

Data & AI

Enterprise Architecture

Security

Cloud Environments

Python

Claude Code / Cursor

Tools

Claude Code

Cursor

Knowledge graphs

Job description

No H-1B, OPT, or visa sponsorship will be provided or accepted.

About Shelf

Everyone is talking about agentic AI. One problem: nobody is handing the keys to an agent that still guesses. One hallucination in a 20-step workflow, and everything breaks.

The real bottleneck isn't the model. It's deterministic answers. Deterministic answers require an enterprise knowledge vault. We've spent the last eight years building exactly that.

Now we're building the rest of the stack.

About the Role

As a Solutions Architect at Shelf, you’ll be the technical authority behind our most complex customer opportunities, translating enterprise data, architecture, and AI challenges into solutions that can prove value quickly and scale into production.

You’ll engage early in the sales cycle, leading technical discovery and conversations around architecture, security, integrations, and deployment strategy. You’ll work with senior technical stakeholders to understand their existing data environment and AI initiatives, design the target solution, and guide proof-of-Value pilots using real customer data.

This is a highly technical, customer-facing role. You’ll be equally comfortable whiteboarding an architecture with a CTO or Enterprise Architect, digging into data models and pipelines alongside Engineering, and explaining how the proposed solution creates measurable business value.

Reporting to the Director of Solutions Architecture, you’ll partner closely with Account Executives throughout the sales cycle, with primary ownership of technical evaluations and pilots. You’ll also work with Customer Success through onboarding and initial enablement, help architect expansion opportunities within existing accounts, and bring structured feedback from the field directly to Product and Engineering.

What You'll Do

• Lead Technical Discovery & Solution Design – Translate customer data environments, GenAI initiatives, security requirements, integrations, and deployment constraints into clear, deployable target architectures.
• Own Technical Evaluations – Lead architecture, security, and deployment conversations throughout the sales cycle, serving as the technical authority for senior customer stakeholders.
• Design & Guide Proof-of-Value Pilots – Define success criteria and lead pilots using real customer data, working directly with Engineering to demonstrate measurable value and validate the path to production.
• Architect for Production & Expansion – Define reference architectures that guide customers from pilot through production deployment, scale, and additional use cases within existing accounts.
• Build & Influence – Develop reusable reference architectures, ontology templates, and solution best practices while bringing structured field insights back to the CTO, Product, and Engineering teams.

Ideal Candidate

• Solution Architecture Expertise – 8–12+ years in solutions architecture, technical pre-sales, enterprise architecture, data/AI engineering, or similar customer-facing technical roles, with a track record of designing complex enterprise solutions.
• Deep Data & AI Expertise – Strong command of data modeling, data platforms, ETL/pipelines, LLMs, RAG, and agent-based systems; experience with knowledge graphs, ontologies, or semantic technologies is strongly preferred.
• Enterprise Technical Authority – Deep understanding of enterprise architecture, security, integrations, deployment strategy, and cloud environments across AWS, Azure, and/or GCP.
• Senior Stakeholder & Commercial Credibility – Comfortable leading technical conversations with Enterprise Architects, Data Leaders, CTOs, and AI Leaders, translating complex technology into business value and helping drive technical wins, conversions, and expansion.
• Hands-On & Collaborative – Able to move between executive-level architecture discussions and hands-on collaboration with Engineering; familiarity with Python and modern AI development tools such as Claude Code or Cursor is a plus.

Why Join Shelf

• Build the Future of Enterprise AI – Help define how AI-native companies will operate over the next decade.
• Industry Leader – We've spent the last eight years becoming a leader in enterprise AI knowledge. Now we're building the next chapter.
• Backed by World-Class Investors – Join a company supported by leading investors and trusted by many of the world's largest enterprises.
• Accelerate Your Career – You'll wear more hats, own more projects, and gain more exposure in a year than most people get in several. There are very few places where you'll learn this much, this quickly.

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation – Competitive base salary + very meaningful equity.
• Flexible PTO
• Medical, Dental & Vision – Comprehensive health coverage.