Principal Architect - Applied AI & Machine Learning (SME)

Are you looking for a role that motivates and challenges you? Are you ready for an opportunity for growth? Do you want to work on teams where people roll up their sleeves to take on tough problems together, and regularly blow the doors off our clients with their outstanding teamwork? If you answered yes to those questions, 3Cloud might just be for you! At 3Cloud, we hire people who aren’t afraid to experiment or fail. We hire people who are willing to give direct and candid feedback to their managers, leaders, and team members. We hire people who jump at those opportunities because they care about our collective growth and success. We hire people who challenge and hold each other accountable for living 3Cloud’s core values because they know that it will result in amazing experiences and solutions for our clients and each other. The Principal Architect AI SME in Delivery leads architecture for large Azure programs that span applications, platforms, and data. You connect business goals to cloud modernization roadmaps, define architecture frameworks, and guide multi-team execution. At this level, you act as an organization-wide technical leader. You set technical direction across practices, orchestrate cross-team discovery, keep designs aligned across multiple teams, and turn successful patterns into reusable models. You promote strong engineering, automation, and AI-assisted practices, mentor Senior Architects and Delivery Architects, and help build an inclusive, continuously improving engineering culture while supporting clear investment and modernization decisions for 3Cloud and our clients. Responsibilities: Solution Architecture and Technical Leadership • Lead architecture and technical strategy for large Azure programs and portfolios so solutions meet client goals for value, security, scalability, reliability, performance, and cost. • Define modernization blueprints and reference architectures across applications, platforms, and data, including system and subsystem designs, patterns, and standards that simplify delivery and operations over time. • Translate business and product strategy into cloud architecture roadmaps and execution plans that drive measurable outcomes and adapt based on production feedback and telemetry. • Guide major architecture decisions across programs, promote shared design standards and reusable models, and resolve high-impact technical trade-offs. • Work across teams to connect solutions into cohesive end-to-end architectures with clear ownership boundaries and integration contracts. • Provide architectural oversight during delivery through design reviews, forums, and governance, keeping cross-cutting concerns (security, performance, resilience, availability, compliance, observability, and cost) aligned across teams. • Promote modular design, clear boundaries, testability, CI/CD, and observability so non-functional requirements are treated as first-class and systems remain reliable and maintainable. • Use AI tools to accelerate discovery, design, code, tests, documentation, and analysis, and scale successful practices so teams adopt them consistently. Delivery and Consulting Excellence • Lead or co-lead executive and senior stakeholder conversations on cloud modernization, platform strategy, AI adoption, and program roadmaps. • Use structured problem solving to clarify scope, dependencies, risks, and trade-offs, and shape delivery plans that balance value, cost, speed, and long-term system health. • Set discovery strategy so program objectives flow into a clear, traceable backlog tied to architecture and business outcomes. • Explain complex architecture and modernization strategies in clear language for executives, business leaders, and technical teams, including options, trade-offs, and recommendations. • Build trusted relationships with technology and business leaders, influencing priorities and investment decisions in ways that help mature their engineering and architecture practices. • Run structured decision-making forums (such as architecture reviews or steering committees) that produce clear decisions, documented rationale, and actionable next steps. • Define architecture, discovery, and delivery frameworks and working agreements that support predictable, incremental delivery across multiple teams and time zones, including cadences, artifacts, escalation paths, and hybrid delivery guidelines. • Align teams on shared outcomes, APIs, integration contracts, and operating models, ensuring crossteam dependencies are identified early, owned, and tracked through to completion. • Support effective use of Agile methods at program scale so architecture, backlogs, and release plans support meaningful increments, stable team velocity, low defect escape, clear definitions of done, and course corrections based on telemetry and feedback. • Track risks, technical debt, quality trends, and architectural drift across teams, and recommend adjustments that keep programs on track while balancing short-term delivery needs with long-term system health. • Support cross-practice opportunity qualification and estimating using playbooks, benchmarks, and templates so the organization focuses on high-fit pursuits and improves proposal quality and confidence in value, risk, and margin. Mentorship and Team Development • Mentor Senior Architects, Delivery Architects, and senior engineers, helping them grow systems thinking, architectural judgment, cross-team awareness, and their ability to lead multi-team initiatives. • Provide architectural oversight across programs, modeling pragmatic decision-making, including when to keep solutions simple, when to standardize, when to extend patterns, and when to introduce new technologies. • Help shape career paths and development plans for architects by clarifying expectations for operating at program scale and providing concrete examples of what “good” looks like. • Create and maintain high-leverage learning assets—such as reference implementations, architecture decision records, playbooks, and mentoring guides—that accelerate onboarding and skill growth. • Support hiring, calibration, and talent development by defining interview standards, participating in senior-level interviews and promotion reviews, and training others to apply those standards consistently. • Set a high bar for executive-ready communication and storytelling, and coach others so their narratives support clear decisions and strengthen client trust. • Help build a culture of psychological safety, inclusion, constructive feedback, and continuous improvement within and across teams, and support new ways of working that endure beyond a single project. Growth and Innovation: • Grow the company by identifying opportunities within your accounts across all our capabilities and pursuing them with the support of the account team. • Intentionally build executive relationships within accounts to expand our partnership and create opportunities to provide strategic value. • Drive sales opportunities by participating in pursuit teams as either the Pursuit Lead or Technical Solution Lead. • Partner with sales, account, and practice leaders to shape technical strategy for strategic pursuits, projects and/or programs. • Lead the creation of solution options, program-level architectures, and estimates, clearly documenting assumptions, dependencies, and risks and explaining how proposed approaches drive business value and reduce risk. • Operate as a senior technical advisor whose guidance shapes multi-track initiatives and supports long-term account growth. • Identify follow-on and adjacent opportunities—such as platform extensions, additional modernization waves, AI-enabled capabilities, or data estate modernization—that align with client strategies and 3Cloud’s strengths. • Define and evolve reusable assets—such as reference architectures, modernization playbooks, landing zone templates, workshops, accelerators, and starter repositories—that become standard patterns for delivery teams and reduce cycle time and rework while honoring architectural and nonfunctional requirements. • Champion adoption of modern frameworks, cloud platform capabilities, automation practices, and AIassisted tools in a responsible and secure way, using pilots and experiments with clear success criteria to turn innovation into stable, repeatable practice. • Contribute to internal cross-practice initiatives that share patterns and lessons from large programs and reinforce our credibility with clients and partners. • Shape enablement programs that grow capabilities and reusable assets across accounts and package applied innovation into offerings and assets used in delivery and pursuits. Requirements: • 12+ years of experience delivering solutions in a primary domain such as application development, cloud platform engineering, DevOps, or data and analytics, including significant work at enterprise scale. • 7+ years of experience in solution architecture and leading development or engineering teams, including multi-team or multi-workstream efforts at program scale. • Ten or more years of relevant experience with a demonstrated ability to set vision and lead enterprise-wide AI/ML adoption strategies. • Thought leadership and deep expertise across several of the following: • Agents & Orchestration – leveraging Semantic Kernel, LangChain, or similar frameworks to design intelligent workflows; applying tool/function calling, planner and agent-based patterns, and workflow automation engines. • Search & Retrieval – implementing solutions with vector databases such as Azure AI Search, Pinecone, FAISS, or Milvus; applying hybrid search methods, re-ranking strategies, and selecting embedding models for accuracy and performance. • Evaluation, Quality & LLM Operations – establishing offline and online evaluation approaches; using golden datasets, hallucination and groundedness validation, toxicity and safety testing; building telemetry and feedback loops; managing monitoring, deployment pipelines, and ongoing optimization of large language models. • Responsible AI, Security & Privacy – incorporating practices such as threat modeling, privacy reviews, data minimization, safety guardrails, policy enforcement, auditability, and model risk management in line with GDPR and organizational standards. • AI Platforms & Data Foundations – applying hands-on experience with Azure AI services, Databricks, Azure OpenAI, and related modern data platforms. • Cloud Engineering – designing with APIs, containers, microservices, and DevOps pipelines to deliver scalable, cloud-native solutions. • Data Integration & Governance – developing and managing data pipelines; applying quality controls, metadata practices, and master data management approaches. • Analytics & Visualization – delivering insights with Power BI and other visualization tools. • Proven ability to integrate emerging AI frameworks into enterprise-ready solutions. • Expertise with modern development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor). • Knowledge of analytics and data science tools, frameworks, and advanced techniques. • Relevant Azure or Databricks certifications in AI, Data, or Architecture. • Proven experience leading architecture and delivery for Azure-based modernization, transformation, AI, or platform programs at enterprise scale. • Experience defining solution and platform architectures that connect business strategy with scalable technical design, strong delivery practices, and measurable outcomes. • Experience leading hybrid and remote teams and working with multiple stakeholders across time zones while maintaining alignment, quality, and predictable delivery. • Deep understanding of core concepts, languages, frameworks, and design patterns in a primary domain, with the ability to apply them at system and program scale. • Experience designing and integrating quality, automation, and observability practices at scale, including automated testing strategies and embedding quality checks into delivery workflows. • Experience using AI-augmented development and integrating AI and machine learning capabilities into solutions (for example, using APIs, frameworks, or cloud-based AI services and tools for code, test, and documentation acceleration). • Significant experience working in Agile or Scrum environments at scale, including backlog structuring, dependency management, integration planning, and release management. • Proven success in consulting or professional services, including client-facing leadership and executive engagement. • Familiarity with key Azure services used in modern solutions that are relevant to your domain (for example, messaging, compute, data, security, networking, management, and integration services). • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with strong presentation, written, and verbal communication skills for both technical and business audiences. • Commitment to continuous learning in cloud, data, and AI, with the ability to turn that learning into practical improvements for teams and clients. • Ability to foster culture, inclusion, and community participation across the organization in ways that support rapid cross-team collaboration. • Relevant cloud architecture certifications (for example, Azure-focused architect certifications or comparable role-based certifications) are strongly preferred. Don’t meet every single requirement? At 3Cloud we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. At this time, we cannot sponsor applicants for work visas 3Cloud Total Rewards Highlights Include: Flexible work location with a virtual first approach to work! 401(K) with match up to 50% of your 6% contributions of eligible pay Generous PTO providing a minimum of 15 days in addition to 9 paid company holidays and 2 floating personal days Two medical plan options to allow you the choice to elect what works best for you! Option for vision and dental coverage 100% employer paid coverage for life and disability insurance Paid leave for birth parents and non-birth parents Option for Healthcare FSA, HSA, and Dependent Care FSA $67.00 monthly tech and home office allowance Utilization and/or discretionary bonus eligibility based on role Employee Assistance Program to help with everyday challenges 3Cloud offers competitive compensation. In addition to base pay employees are eligible to receive an annual discretionary/utilization bonus. If you are hired at 3Cloud your final base salary is based on factors such as skills, education, experience and/or geographic location. Please keep in mind that the range mentioned above includes the full base salary range for the role. It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. Base Salary Range $176,200 — $264,300 USD Don’t meet every single requirement? At 3Cloud we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. At this time, we cannot sponsor applicants for work visas.