Remote Principal AI & Data Solutions Architect

Placements24; Polokwane; Hybrid; ZAR 2,964,000 - 4,281,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Executive-level compensation with base

Global health, dental, vision

Generous time off

Professional development budget

Home office setup allowance

Stock options

Fully remote work environment

Job summary

Placements24 seeks a Principal Solutions Architect for a remote-first, globally distributed team shaping the architectural direction of sophisticated analytics and AI platforms. You will drive cloud-native designs, data pipelines, and scalable architectures across AWS/Azure/GCP, partnering with engineers and researchers to translate business needs into robust technical solutions.

The ideal candidate has 12+ years in software architecture with 5+ years in big data, AI/ML, and cloud solutions, and

Qualifications

• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
• 12+ years of experience in software architecture and design, with at least 5 years on big data, AI/ML, and cloud solutions.
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and scalable data architectures.
• Proficiency with AWS, Azure, and GCP data/AI services.
• Experience with Spark, Hadoop, Kafka; ML frameworks like TensorFlow/PyTorch.
• Programming in Python, Scala, or Java; strong CI/CD and containerization (Docker/Kubernetes).

Responsibilities

• Lead architectural design and strategy for large-scale data analytics and AI platforms.
• Define best practices for cloud-native architectures, microservices, and data pipelines.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and research to translate business needs into robust solutions.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and architectural guidance to teams.
• Evaluate technologies and tools for data-intensive applications.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, reliable, secure, and cost-effective across clouds.
• Drive innovation by integrating emerging AI and big data tech.
• Develop architectural blueprints, documentation, and standards.
• Engage with senior stakeholders to articulate technology strategy.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud platforms

Big data technologies

Python

Java

Scala

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Leadership

Communication

Education

Master's or PhD in Computer Science/Data Science or related

Tools

Spark

Hadoop

Kafka

Terraform

Airflow

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Job description

Placements24 seeks a Principal Solutions Architect for a remote-first, globally distributed team shaping the architectural direction of sophisticated analytics and AI platforms. You will drive cloud-native designs, data pipelines, and scalable architectures across AWS/Azure/GCP, partnering with engineers and researchers to translate business needs into robust technical solutions.

The ideal candidate has 12+ years in software architecture with 5+ years in big data, AI/ML, and cloud solutions, and