Senior AI Platform Lead & Architect

Alvarez & Marsal

Chicago (IL)

On-site

USD 220,000 - 250,000

Full time

22 hours ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare plans

401(k) retirement plan

Paid time off

Job summary

Alvarez & Marsal is seeking an AI Engineering Lead and Architect to own the end‑to‑end technical architecture for the Intelligence Layer, guiding a small, high‑tempo team and delivery partners. You will design and implement production‑grade systems, knowledge graphs, and integration patterns across enterprise data sources with strong governance and security considerations.

The role requires hands‑on coding in Python, architecture leadership, and collaboration with the Product Owner to translate

Qualifications

Eight+ years of software engineering experience with architecture responsibility.
Experience directing internal teams and third-party vendors, including setting technical direction.
Production experience designing and building knowledge graphs, with strong Neo4j and Cypher experience preferred.
Full-stack fluency across modern front-end frameworks, back-end services, APIs, data pipelines, and strong Python development.
Experience creating architecture diagrams and technical specifications that engineering teams can implement.
Substantial experience with Claude, ChatGPT, or comparable large language model platforms, including hands‑on experience building MCP servers, AI agent tools, or comparable enterprise AI integrations.
Hands-on experience designing and implementing enterprise authentication and authorization using Microsoft Entra ID, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, token scoping, on-behalf-of flows, and secrets management.
Experience integrating structured and unstructured enterprise data with appropriate security, privacy, and governance controls.
Ability to evaluate competing technical approaches, explain tradeoffs clearly, and convert product decisions into delivery plans.
Strong communication skills across engineering, product, security, business, and executive audiences.

Responsibilities

Own end-to-end technical architecture and engineering roadmap for the Intelligence Layer, including knowledge graphs, ingestion, retrieval, APIs, user-facing capabilities, security, and integration with A&M's Data Layer and enterprise systems.
Serve as the Product Owner's technical counterpart by testing proposed approaches, explaining tradeoffs, recommending a course of action, and translating final product decisions into executable technical direction.
Direct internal engineers and delivery partners, set priorities and technical standards, review designs and code, resolve blockers, and hold delivery teams accountable for scope, quality, and milestones.
Create and maintain architecture diagrams, data-flow diagrams, integration specifications, technical decision records, and implementation guidance for technical and non-technical audiences.
Design knowledge graph schemas, entity models, ingestion pipelines, and retrieval patterns using Neo4j and Cypher or comparable graph technologies.
Write, review, and ship production code, primarily in Python and API development, and contribute to front‑end implementation when needed.
Architect the integration of structured data and unstructured content from multiple business units and enterprise systems while preserving permissions, ethical walls, and governance requirements.
Design and guide MCP servers, agent integrations, authentication, authorization, and enterprise identity patterns for approved large language model platforms.
Architect and lead the development of production agentic systems and pipelines, including multi‑step orchestration, planning, tool routing, MCP integrations, retrieval, state and memory, evaluation, guardrails, observability, and human‑in‑the‑loop controls.
Ensure the platform meets requirements for client confidentiality, case isolation, security, reliability, observability, maintainability, and cost management.
Communicate delivery status, technical risks, dependencies, and decisions clearly to the Product Owner, firm leadership, and partner teams.