Principal AI Architect

TeamLease Digital Global; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

TeamLease Digital in New York/New Jersey, USA, Hybrid, seeks a Principal AI Architect to lead enterprise AI delivery for complex client environments, especially in investment management and financial services.

The role is hands-on and senior, turning AI prototypes into production-ready, scalable and secure solutions while optimizing performance and cost.

You will set standards, mentor a large team of AI engineers and data scientists, and partner with sales to craft winning technical proposals.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering, architecture, data platforms and AI/ML.
• Proven enterprise AI production delivery experience.
• Hands-on fine-tuning and serving open-weight LLMs (LoRA, QLoRA, full FT).
• Strong Python, distributed systems, APIs, containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD, GPU serving.
• Experience with cloud platforms and data platforms (Databricks, Snowflake).
• Knowledge of AI evaluation, monitoring, governance and data readiness.
• Demonstrated leadership while hands-on coding and architecture reviews.

Responsibilities

• Define enterprise AI architecture across LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, model routing, orchestration, guardrails and evaluation.
• Lead open-weight model selection, fine-tuning, deployment and optimisation.
• Establish production engineering standards, automated testing, evaluation frameworks, CI/CD and release-readiness controls.
• Optimise AI inference costs, latency and performance through quantisation, caching, batching and distillation.
• Lead and mentor a team of 30+ AI engineers and data scientists across multiple client implementations.
• Partner with sales and consulting teams on solution architecture, technical proposals, feasibility assessments and cost estimation.

Skills

AI Architecture

Python

Kubernetes

CI/CD

GPU Serving

Cloud Platform

Data Platforms

Model Fine-tuning

Leadership

Security & Governance

Education

CS/Engineering degree

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Principal AI Architect — Enterprise AI Delivery

TeamLease Digital | New York / New Jersey, USA | Hybrid

TeamLease Digital is seeking an experienced Principal AI Architect to lead enterprise AI architecture and production delivery for complex client environments, particularly within investment management and financial services.

This is a senior technical leadership opportunity for a hands-on architect who can transform AI prototypes into scalable, secure, production-ready solutions while optimising performance and cost.

Key Responsibilities

• Define enterprise AI architecture covering LLMs, RAG, agentic systems, model routing, orchestration, guardrails and evaluation.
• Lead open-weight model selection, fine-tuning, deployment and optimisation.
• Establish production engineering standards, automated testing, evaluation frameworks, CI/CD and release-readiness controls.
• Optimise AI inference costs, latency and performance through quantisation, caching, batching and distillation.
• Lead and mentor a team of 30+ AI engineers and data scientists across multiple client implementations.
• Partner with sales and consulting teams on solution architecture, technical proposals, feasibility assessments and cost estimation.

Required Skills and Experience

• 12+ years of experience across software engineering, architecture, data platforms and AI/ML.
• Proven experience delivering enterprise AI systems into production for real users.
• Hands-on experience fine-tuning and serving open-weight LLMs, including LoRA, QLoRA or full fine-tuning.
• Strong Python, distributed systems, APIs, containers, Kubernetes, CI/CD and GPU-serving expertise.
• Experience with a major cloud platform and data platforms such as Databricks or Snowflake.
• Strong knowledge of AI evaluation, monitoring, governance and enterprise data readiness.
• Demonstrated technical leadership while remaining hands-on with coding and architecture reviews.
• A degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related technical field.

What Makes This Role Different?

This role focuses on production-grade enterprise AI, not just prototypes or integrations with hosted AI APIs. Candidates should be able to demonstrate measurable improvements in inference cost, latency, model performance and production reliability.

Work Authorization

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.