Senior AI Systems Architect - Forward Engineering Lead

EY; Houston (TX); Hybrid; USD 144,000 - 329,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Total Rewards package

Generous paid time off

Job summary

EY seeks a senior Distinguished Engineer to lead the delivery of AI-native systems into highly regulated industries, translating complex field realities into durable, enterprise-ready patterns. You will guide cross-cell teams, enforce architecture intent, and champion reusable reference implementations for safe, auditable production deployments.

This role blends hands-on delivery with strategic governance, partnering with Product Engineering and Architecture while operating in EY’s hybrid

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience delivering complex AI enterprise systems, ideally in regulated industries.
• Deep experience with distributed systems, cloud platforms, and integration-heavy architectures.
• Hands-on experience with modern AI-enabled application stacks (agentic systems, orchestration frameworks, LLM-backed services).
• Proven ability to operate in forward-deployed or customer-facing engineering roles, owning outcomes under real-world constraints.
• Track record of creating reusable technical patterns or platforms that scale beyond a single engagement.
• Experience collaborating closely with architecture, product, and platform teams.
• Strong understanding of software delivery lifecycle, quality gates, and production readiness in enterprise settings.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a cross-engagement technical authority, ensuring delivery implementations adhere to architecture intent, safety, and economic constraints in regulated environments.
• Synthesize learnings from multiple delivery cells into durable reference integrations, validated implementations, and reusable patterns that reduce repeated failure modes.
• Work with AI agents to support regulated safe-to-ship decisions by contributing technical evidence and validation inputs.
• Operate as a player-coach, contributing directly to complex system design and implementation while guiding delivery teams toward consistent, repeatable approaches.
• Own the consolidation, prioritization, and communication of cross-cell product signals, converting field observations and client-specific adaptations into evidence-based recommendations, distinguishing them from isolated customer requests.
• Partner with Product Engineering and Product Architecture to package consolidated client patterns into technical business cases, backlog candidates, and platform investment recommendations.
• Participate in shaping sessions, architecture reviews, and prioritization discussions, advocating changes that improve portability, operability, and customer outcomes.

Skills

AI/ML expertise

Distributed systems

Cloud platforms

System architecture

Regulated environments

Client-facing

Orchestration frameworks

Observability

Security awareness

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

Job description

EY seeks a senior Distinguished Engineer to lead the delivery of AI-native systems into highly regulated industries, translating complex field realities into durable, enterprise-ready patterns. You will guide cross-cell teams, enforce architecture intent, and champion reusable reference implementations for safe, auditable production deployments.

This role blends hands-on delivery with strategic governance, partnering with Product Engineering and Architecture while operating in EY’s hybrid