Senior Solution Architect

EPAM Systems Inc; McLean (VA); Remote; USD 160,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance (

Health Savings Account

Flexible Spending Accounts

Disability Insurance

Life and AD&D Insurance

Employee Assistance Program

LinkedIn Learning Solutions

401(k) Matching

Paid Time Off

Paid Holidays

Employee Discounts

Employee Stock Purchase Program

Discretionary Bonus Program

Long-Term Incentive Program

Job summary

EPAM Systems, Inc. is seeking an AI Architect to design AI-native architectures for enterprise applications, including RAG systems, agents, and autonomous workflows.

You will define system scope, guardrails, and evaluation methods, balancing business needs with technical feasibility. The role requires hands-on coding ability, experience with distributed systems, cloud data flows, and clear communication to executives.

Qualifications

• Architect AI-native systems in production, including RAG, assistants, agents or agentic workflows with real business context.
• Proven track record as software/solution architect with AI initiative in last year.
• Delivery accountability for shipped, maintained systems.
• Experience with distributed systems, cloud and enterprise data-flow.
• Ability to surface ambiguities and justify explicit trade-offs.
• Experience presenting options, costs and risks to non-technical decision makers.
• Documentation habit: architecture decision records and reference architectures.
• Recent hands-on coding to prototype and validate constraints.
• Understanding AI-assisted development and architect role evolution.

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end AI-native architectures: orchestration, retrieval, tool integration, agent autonomy and guardrails, identity, evaluation, observability, and cost model.
• Tailor solutions to business scope and explain what is left out and why.
• Convert conflicting requirements into explicit business decisions with ownership.
• Document architectural trade-offs (build vs buy, model choice, retrieval strategy, autonomy level, cost vs quality) for stakeholders.
• Define evaluation strategies to ensure business-fit, not just fluent outputs.
• Author constraints, guidelines, and fitness functions for engineering teams and agents.
• Determine where humans stay in the loop for regulated decisions and data of record.
• Collaborate with EPAM delivery teams and presales to shape proposals and reviews.
• Build PoCs or reference implementations when needed as evidence.
• Contribute to EPAM AI architecture practice with reference architectures.

Skills

AI Architecture

Distributed Systems

Cloud Dataflow

Requirements trade-offs

Stakeholder communication

Hands-on coding

Job description

Enterprises are past the point of asking whether AI belongs in their systems. The question now is which AI capabilities should exist, how much autonomy each one earns, how they integrate with systems of record and real business processes, and how anyone will know they are working. Answering those questions well - and writing the answers down so that engineering teams and coding agents can build against them - is the AI Architect's job.

You will design the target architecture of AI-native applications, Enterprise AI and Applied AI solutions for large clients across industries, from assistants and RAG systems to agents, agentic workflows and autonomous components. You will decide what the system should do and, just as importantly, what it should not. You will define the evaluations, guardrails, and constraints that shape what gets built, whether the builder is an engineer or an AI coding agent.

This is an architecture role. The output is decisions, structure, and the reasoning behind them - not code volume. You will still prototype when a decision needs evidence, but most of your time goes to framing problems, resolving conflicting requirements, making trade-offs explicit, and getting the right people to own them.

Req# 1090267686

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end architectures for AI-native solutions: orchestration, retrieval, tool and system integration, agent autonomy and guardrails, identity and authorization, evaluation, observability, and cost model

• Fit each solution exactly to the business scope - no more, no less - and be able to explain what you deliberately left out and why

• Turn incoherent or contradictory requirements into explicit business decisions: surface them, reframe them in business terms, price the options, and get a named owner to decide

• Make and document architectural trade-offs (build vs buy, model selection, retrieval strategy, autonomy level, cost vs quality) in a form that stakeholders can challenge and future teams can trust

• Define the evaluation strategy for each system: how we will know that an assistant or agent fits the business scope, not just that it produces fluent output

• Author the constraints, guidelines, and architectural fitness functions that engineering teams and coding agents build within, and revise them as the organization learns what generation gets wrong

• Decide where humans must stay in the loop - regulated decisions, data of record, security boundaries, anything with legal or contractual consequence

• Work within EPAM delivery teams and in presales: shape proposals, present options and costs to client executives, and review designs across teams

• Build proofs of concept and reference implementations when, and only when, a decision needs evidence or a team needs an example of "good"

• Contribute to EPAM's AI architecture practice: reference architectures, reusable patterns, and mentoring architects who are transitioning into AI-native design

Requirements

• You have architected AI-native systems in production - RAG, assistants, agents or agentic workflows with real users or real business processes behind them - and you held architect-level responsibility for the system around the model

• You are a proven solution or software architect with a strong production track record who has started building with AI on your own initiative in the last year or so - a side project, a proof of concept, an internal tool, published writing - and wants to make AI-native design the center of your work

• Solid experience as a solution, software, or enterprise architect with delivery accountability: systems you designed that shipped, ran, and were maintained over time

• Depth in distributed systems, integration, cloud, and data-flow architecture at enterprise scale

• Demonstrated ability to work with ambiguous, conflicting requirements and to make trade-offs explicit rather than resolving them silently

• Experience presenting options, costs, and risks to non-technical decision makers and getting decisions made

• A habit of writing things down: architecture decision records, design documents, reference architectures that other teams built from

• Recent hands‑on coding ability, enough to prototype and to keep your constraints honest

• Understanding of how AI-assisted development changes the architect's role: what to specify, what to evaluate, and where to keep human judgment

Nice to have

• Experience in regulated industries - financial services, healthcare and life sciences, insurance

• Agent frameworks, tool and function calling, MCP, orchestration patterns, LLM observability

• Identity and authorization for agentic systems (OAuth 2.1, SPIFFE, AuthZEN, DPoP)

• Ownership of cost and token economics for a production AI system

• Consulting or pre‑sales experience

• Published writing, talks, or open‑source contributions on AI architecture

We offer

• Medical, Dental and Vision Insurance (Subsidized)

• Health Savings Account

• Flexible Spending Accounts (Healthcare, Dependent Care, Commuter)

• Short‑Term and Long‑Term Disability (Company Provided)

• Life and AD&D Insurance (Company Provided)

• Employee Assistance Program

• Unlimited access to LinkedIn learning solutions

• Matched 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan

• Paid Time Off – the employee will be eligible to accrue 15-25 paid days, depending on specific level and tenure with EPAM (accrual eligibility may change over time)

• Paid Holidays - nine (9) total per year

• Legal Plan and Identity Theft Protection

• Accident Insurance

• Employee Discounts

• Pet Insurance

• Employee Stock Purchase Program

• If otherwise eligible, participation in the discretionary annual bonus program

• If otherwise eligible and hired into a qualifying level, participation in the discretionary Long‑Term Incentive (LTI) Program

This Remote Position Cannot be Performed in New York City.

Salary range: $160,000 - $230,000. In addition, the details highlighted in this job posting above are a general description of all other expected benefits and compensation for the position.

In accordance with the LA County Fair Chance Ordinance, you may find a copy of the Notice containing a summary of the Ordinance’s key provisions here: Concept FCO Posting 8 27 24 (lacounty.gov)

EPAM Systems, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We recognize the value of diversity and inclusion in creating success for our customers, business partners, shareholders, employees and communities. We are committed to recruiting, hiring, developing and promoting employees without discrimination. As a global employer, this commitment includes complying with all laws in the countries in which we operate. Nevertheless, we believe equal employment practices should not be limited to what the law requires. Equal opportunity and inclusion are essential to motivate, empower and recognize the best in everyone.

At EPAM, employment actions are based on individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, pregnancy status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital or familial status, national origin, ancestry, genetics, age, disability status, veteran status, citizenship status when otherwise legally able to work, or any other characteristic protected by law.