Senior AI Architect

Accord Technologies Inc; Charlotte (NC); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Accord Technologies Inc in Charlotte, NC is seeking two experienced Senior AI Architects on a W2 contract basis to strengthen delivery of architecture across our technology portfolio. These roles are hands-on, AI-fluent architects who can translate business needs into clear architecture artifacts and stand up working prototypes from day one.

You will design end-to-end architectures, integrate AI/GenAI components, drive rapid POCs, and collaborate with engineering, product, and business partners

Qualifications

• Hands-on AI experience building, integrating, or architecting AI/GenAI/ML solutions.
• Ability to produce clear, complete architecture designs and documentation.
• Ability to drive quick prototypes and proofs of concept to test ideas.
• Senior, hands-on technical background at Lead Architect level with modern patterns.
• Strong communication skills to explain architecture and trade-offs to technical and business stakeholders.
• Self-directed and able to work across ambiguity to deliver tangible outcomes quickly.

Responsibilities

• Assemble architecture designs and produce end-to-end artifacts: solution designs, reference architectures, diagrams, patterns, ADRs.
• Apply AI capabilities design and integrate AI/GenAI/ML components into solutions, advising on patterns and tooling.
• Drive rapid prototypes and POCs to validate decisions and accelerate alignment.
• Partner with engineering, product, and business to align architecture with delivery goals, security, scalability, and cost.
• Document and communicate designs to technical and non-technical audiences; keep docs current.
• Uphold enterprise architecture standards, controls, and best practices.

Skills

AI/GenAI

Prototyping

Cloud architecture

Leadership

Stakeholder comms

Security & scalability

Job description

Senior AI Architect

Charlotte, NC (Need Onsite day 1, hybrid 3 days from office)

Position type: W2 contract

We are seeking two experienced Lead Architects on a contract basis to strengthen delivery of architecture work across our technology portfolio. These roles operate at the Lead Architect level and partner closely with our internal architecture team, engineering leads, and business stakeholders. The right candidates are hands-on, AI-fluent architects who can quickly translate business and technical needs into clear architecture artifacts and stand up working prototypes to prove out ideas fast. They should be comfortable moving between big-picture design and rapid, tangible experimentation.

The Role

• Assemble architecture designs produce clear, end-to-end architecture artifacts: solution designs, reference architectures, diagrams, patterns, and architecture decision records.
• Apply AI capabilities design and integrate AI / GenAI / machine-learning components into solutions, and advise on appropriate patterns, tooling, and trade-offs.
• Drive rapid prototypes build quick proofs of concept and working prototypes to validate architecture decisions, de-risk options, and accelerate stakeholder alignment.
• Partner across teams work with engineering, product, and business partners to align architecture with delivery goals and non-functional requirements (security, scalability, resilience, cost).
• Document and communicate present designs and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, and keep architecture documentation current and usable.
• Uphold standards apply enterprise architecture standards, controls, and best practices throughout design and prototyping.

Requirements

• Demonstrable hands-on AI experience practical work building, integrating, or architecting AI / GenAI / ML solutions.
• Proven ability to put architecture details together a track record of producing clear, complete architecture designs and documentation.
• Ability to drive quick prototypes rapidly stand up POCs and working prototypes to test and demonstrate ideas.
• Senior, hands-on technical background operating at a Lead Architect level, with strong design fundamentals across modern application, integration, and cloud patterns.
• Strong communication skills able to explain architecture and trade-offs to technical teams and business stakeholders alike.
• Self-directed and comfortable working across ambiguity to deliver tangible outcomes quickly.

Technical Skills

• Representative technical skills for these roles. Candidates should bring strong depth across several of these areas tailor to our stack as needed:
• AI & Machine Learning GenAI and large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic and prompt-engineering patterns, model APIs and integration, embeddings and vector stores; familiarity with common ML frameworks.
• Cloud & Platform hands-on experience with at least one major cloud (AWS, Azure, or GCP); containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes); serverless services.
• Architecture & Integration microservices, event-driven and API-led design, REST / GraphQL APIs, messaging and streaming (e.g., Kafka), and enterprise integration patterns.
• Data & Information Architecture data modeling, relational and NoSQL databases (strong SQL), data lakes / warehouses, ETL / ELT pipelines, and data governance / metadata.
• Languages & Prototyping proficiency in Python and/or Java (or comparable); rapid prototyping, scripting, and notebook-based experimentation.
• Engineering Practices CI/CD, infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform), Git-based version control, and automated testing.
• Architecture Tooling modeling and diagramming (C4, UML, or ArchiMate) and architecture decision records (ADRs).

Preferred, But Not Required

• Depth in data / information architecture experience designing data models, information flows, data platforms, or enterprise information architecture.
• Finance domain experience prior work in Finance functions, especially Controllers / financial control and related processes.