Principal AI Platform Architect

Jobtailor; Arizona; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

USAA is seeking a seasoned Enterprise AI Platform Architect to lead the strategy, architecture, and evolution of the organization’s AI platform. You will partner with senior business and technology leaders to establish architecture standards, governance frameworks, and roadmaps that guide multi-domain AI initiatives.

You will collaborate with stakeholders across business, risk, and IT to finalize strategies, requirements, and controls, while mentoring engineers and architects to ensure scalable,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of technology architecture, platform engineering, or related disciplines.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy, architecture, and evolution of USAA’s enterprise AI platform.

Skills

Enterprise AI Platform Architecture

Cross-Functional Leadership

AI Governance

Risk Management

Architecture Standards

Strategic Planning

Cloud Architecture

Executive Communication

Mentoring

Regulatory Compliance

Tools

AWS Bedrock

OpenAI

Anthropic

Enterprise Agent Architectures

Operationalization Tools

Job description

• Lead the strategy, architecture, and evolution of USAA’s enterprise AI platform
• Define scalable, secure, and compliant AI capabilities supporting generative AI, agentic AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics
• Partner with senior business and technology leaders to establish architecture standards, governance frameworks, and platform roadmaps
• Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to finalize strategy, requirements, measures, risks, and controls across multiple domains
• Coordinate with domain architects to create technology decisions, architecture artifacts, evolutionary strategies, and roadmaps
• Influence priorities, funding, and execution of architecture solutions across multiple domains and portfolios
• Assess domain applications with business and application owners to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and risks
• Advise executive-level business owners and provide assessment summaries to the CTO for board presentation
• Define and document architecture standards, principles, and policies; evaluate and approve or reject waivers
• Support Program Increment planning and troubleshoot Availability Command Center incidents involving multiple technology domains
• Mentor experienced architects, engineers, and IT colleagues and recommend mentoring opportunities to create team redundancy and backfill ability
• Lead technical design and definition of systems, services, and dataflows across multiple domains and portfolios
• Execute architecture practices and processes, ensuring timely deliverables and sponsoring enhancements
• Maintain external relationships with industry organizations, government boards, and vendors
• Pursue external eminence through certifications, conference presentations, technical papers, open-source contributions, or patents
• Identify, measure, monitor, and control risks in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in technology architecture, platform engineering, software engineering, data architecture, or related disciplines
• Leadership of enterprise-scale technology transformation initiatives
• Experience defining and evolving enterprise platform strategies, reference architectures, technology standards, and multi-year roadmaps
• Experience architecting and implementing AI, machine learning, generative AI, or advanced analytics platforms
• Experience with governance, security, scalability, operationalization, and risk management considerations
• Experience partnering across technology, product, data, risk, security, legal, and business organizations
• Deep understanding of AI applications across architecture, software development, testing, operations, platform engineering, and developer productivity workflows
• Ability to evaluate and guide enterprise investments in AI technologies using measurable business outcomes, adoption strategies, value realization metrics, and success frameworks
• Experience communicating complex technology strategies, architecture decisions, risks, and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences, including executive leadership
• Ability to influence organizational AI fluency through thought leadership, education, mentoring, architecture guidance, and cross-functional collaboration
• Deep understanding of technology governance, architecture principles, security controls, regulatory considerations, and risk management practices within highly regulated industries
• Experience leading cross-functional architecture efforts across application, data, integration, cloud, security, and AI domains
• Experience architecting enterprise AI platforms using AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, Anthropic, or equivalent foundation model ecosystems
• Experience designing and implementing enterprise agent architectures, orchestration frameworks, tool integration patterns, and autonomous workflow capabilities
• Experience designing enterprise knowledge architecture and context management capabilities, including knowledge graphs, semantic models, vector search, metadata platforms, retrieval architectures, and context engineering patterns
• Experience establishing enterprise AI governance, observability, evaluation, security, and model lifecycle management capabilities within highly regulated environments
• Must not require immigration support now or in the future; USAA does not provide visa sponsorship

Demonstrates expertise in leading enterprise AI platform strategies, architecture, and governance while ensuring compliance and security across technology domains. Proven ability to mentor teams and communicate complex technology strategies to diverse audiences, driving organizational AI fluency and transformation.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• Enterprise AI Platform Architecture
• Generative AI Implementation
• Risk Management Practices
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Technology Governance

ATS Optimization Keywords

Hard Skills

• Technology Architecture
• Platform Engineering
• Machine Learning
• Advanced Analytics
• AI Governance
• Data Architecture
• Orchestration Frameworks
• Knowledge Graphs
• Context Management
• Security Controls

Soft Skills

• Leadership
• Mentoring
• Communication
• Influencing
• Collaboration

Industry Keywords

• Highly Regulated Industries
• Governance Frameworks
• Architecture Standards
• Risk and Compliance Policies
• Technology Standards

Tools & Technologies

• AWS Bedrock
• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• Enterprise Agent Architectures
• Operationalization Tools