Solutions Architect - Public Sector

Cohere; Washington; Hybrid; USD 205,000 - 245,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Weekly lunch stipend

Health and dental benefits

RRSP matching / 401K / Pension

Parental leave top-up

Education & learning stipend

6 weeks paid vacation

Travel budget to other offices

Home office stipend

Job summary

Cohere is expanding its Public Sector team and seeking a Solutions Architect with a security clearance. You will own the technical relationship, map customer problems to Cohere solutions, and lead PoCs and pre/post-sales activities across enterprise clients.

The role emphasizes strategic thinking and hands-on delivery, with collaboration across product and engineering to ensure offerings meet customer needs and drive adoption.

Qualifications

• Must have Security Clearance.
• 5+ years of public sector customer-facing technical pre/post sales Solutions Architect (or similar) experience.
• 2+ years architecting or deploying NLP/AI/LLM Solutions.
• A passion for Generative AI and understanding of strengths and weaknesses of Generative LLMs and AI technologies.
• Comfortable working with Python and Jupyter Notebooks.
• Excellent communication skills—able to present to CEOs and drill into technical details.
• High tolerance for ambiguity and ability to implement high-impact processes in unstructured environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical talk track on customer calls.
• Deep dives on customer problems and Cohere technology.
• Design enterprise solutions with cutting-edge NLP technology.
• Facilitate customer evaluations and PoCs.
• Develop and document processes to scale the solutions architect team.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to align offerings with customer needs.
• Work with partners to enable and accelerate their customers.

Skills

Security Clearance

Public sector experience

Python

Jupyter Notebooks

Communication skills

Generative AI understanding

Tools

Kubernetes

Networking fundamentals

SAML/OAuth authentication

Job description

Who are we?

Cohere is the leading security-first enterprise AI company. We build cutting-edge foundation AI models and end-to-end products that are designed to solve real‑world business problems.

We’re training and deploying frontier models for enterprises who are building AI systems. We believe that our work is instrumental to the widespread adoption of AI and we are looking for folks that want to be part of that.

We obsess over what we build. Each one of us is responsible for contributing to increasing the capabilities of our models and the value they drive for our customers. Cohere is a team of researchers, engineers, designers, and more, who are all passionate about their craft.

We are a global technology company co-headquartered in Toronto and San Francisco, with key offices in London, New York City, Montreal, Seoul, Germany and Paris. Join us!

Why this role?

In this role as a Solutions Architect at Cohere, you will play a significant role in growing Cohere’s Public Sector business and have a great deal of autonomy when it comes to technical pre-sales and post-sales.

In order to qualify for this exciting career opportunity, you must have a Security Clearance.

Responsibilities include developing a deep understanding of customer problems, mapping them to Cohere solutions, and working closely with our partners as the trusted technical advisor who owns the technical relationship with our stakeholders. By leveraging your expertise, you will help to increase the adoption of Cohere products, both internally and externally, and will gather valuable insights and feedback from customers to help shape the future of our products.

In this dynamic role, you will need to be both a strategic thinker and a hands‑on doer. You will take a hands‑on approach to building customer Proof of Concepts that showcase the business value of our platform. As the technical relationship owner, you will collaborate with stakeholders to understand their business objectives and translate those into technical solutions. You will take ownership of the customer narrative, serving as the voice of the customer and acting as a liaison between the customer and our product team. Additionally, you will provide guidance on best practices for using Cohere, identify areas for improvement within the platform, and cultivate technical champions within customer organizations to drive adoption and gather feedback to enhance our products.

A typical day at Cohere might include:

• Leading the technical talk track on customer calls.
• Deep dives on customer problems and Cohere technology.
• Designing novel enterprise solutions with bleeding‑edge NLP technology.
• Facilitating customer evaluations and PoC’s.
• Developing and documenting processes to enable the solutions architect team to scale effectively within Cohere.
• Collaborating with the Product and Engineering teams to ensure our offering matches the customers’ needs.
• Working closely with our partners to develop a strategy for enabling and accelerating their customers.

This career opportunity is a good match for you if you have:

• Must have: Security Clearance
• 5+ years of public sector customer‑facing technical pre/post sales Solutions Architect (or similar) experience.
• 2+ years architecting or deploying NLP/AI/LLM Solutions.
• A passion for Generative AI, and an understanding of strengths and weaknesses of Generative LLM's and AI technologies.
• Comfortable working with Python and Jupyter Notebooks.
• Excellent communication skills - you can toggle seamlessly between presenting to CEOs, and getting in the weeds or white boarding with technical audiences.
• High tolerance for ambiguity.
• You can identify and implement high-impact processes in unstructured environments.
• Preferred: Experience managing Kubernetes clusters
• Preferred: Experience with networking (firewalls, DNS, cert management, etc)
• Preferred: Familiarity with authentication protocols/frameworks (SAML, OAuth, etc)

Cohere is committed to fair and transparent pay practices. The salary range listed for this role reflects the expected base compensation. Actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, level, job‑related knowledge, skills, education, and experience.

For candidates in Washington, the Compensation Range is: 205,000 - 245,000

Full-Time Employees at Cohere enjoy these Perks:

• A weekly lunch stipend of $75/£75 or equivalent in your local currency for lunch.
• Full health and dental benefits, including a separate budget for mental health.
• RRSP matching, 401K, Pension Scheme.
• 100% Parental Leave top‑up for up to 6 months, for either parent.
• Annual enrichment benefits:
  • Arts & culture, fitness/wellness, quality time, and a workspace improvement credit.
  • Education & learning stipend for conferences, courses, and coaching.
• 6 weeks of paid vacation (30 working days!)
• Budget for traveling to other offices if you are remote, plus an annual company offsite.

How and Where We Work:

• Cohere is remote‑friendly. We have offices in Toronto, San Francisco, New York City, London, Paris, Montreal, and more coming soon.
• For those in the office: a daily lunch program, plenty of snacks, and regular community and social events.
• For those not near an office: a co‑working benefit so you can work alongside others in your city.
• Everyone receives a $500 home office stipend to set up your workspace properly.

If any of the above doesn’t line up exactly with your experience, we still encourage you to apply.

We strive to create an inclusive work environment for all; we welcome applicants from all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities. Should you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please submit Accommodations Request Form, and we will work together to meet your needs.

We may use AI‑enabled tools to screen and assess applicants against the criteria for this position. This helps our recruiters identify potentially qualified candidates, but it doesn't limit the applications our recruiters may review or consider.