Principal AI & Data Architect — CPG/Retail Growth Lead

Fractal; Texas; On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Disability plan

401(k)

Paid holidays

Parental Leave

Paid time off

Job summary

Fractal is seeking a Principal AI & Data Solutions Architect to drive growth across the U.S. CPG/Retail portfolio, sitting at the intersection of thought leadership, solutioning, and hands-on technical execution.

You will partner with account teams to shape opportunities, define engineering roadmaps, and solve complex business problems using modern data and AI foundations. This role emphasizes high-impact solutioning over pure delivery, with deep client engagement and selective hands-on

Qualifications

• 15–20 years of experience across: Data engineering and platform architecture.
• AI/ML or advanced analytics environments.
• Enterprise solutioning and consulting.
• Strong experience working with global clients in a consulting or services environment.
• Exposure to CPG/Retail.

Responsibilities

• Act as a trusted technical advisor to client stakeholders across AI, data, and engineering.
• Drive account growth through thought leadership, proactive idea generation, and solution shaping.
• Partner with account and sales teams during pre-sales, including discovery, solutioning, and proposal development.
• Translate business problems into scalable, high‑impact AI/data solutions.
• Define and drive end‑to‑end data and AI architecture (data platforms, pipelines, ML/AI systems, AIF).
• Develop engineering roadmaps aligned to client business objectives.
• Design scalable, enterprise‑grade solutions across data platforms, cloud ecosystems, and AI/ML frameworks.
• Ensure solutions balance performance, scalability, cost, and maintainability.
• Go beyond strategy—operate at depth when required (architecture reviews, solution design, problem-solving).
• Step into delivery challenges when needed and help unblock teams.
• Guide and mentor architects and engineering teams across global delivery.

Skills

Data engineering

AI/ML

Solution architecture

Client-facing

Pre-sales

Technical leadership

Python

PySpark

Java

Scala

Spark

Tools

Python

PySpark

Java

Scala

Spark

Job description

Fractal is seeking a Principal AI & Data Solutions Architect to drive growth across the U.S. CPG/Retail portfolio, sitting at the intersection of thought leadership, solutioning, and hands-on technical execution.

You will partner with account teams to shape opportunities, define engineering roadmaps, and solve complex business problems using modern data and AI foundations. This role emphasizes high-impact solutioning over pure delivery, with deep client engagement and selective hands-on