AI Solutions Architect

About the Role A growing technology consulting firm seeks an AI Growth Engineer (Solutions Architect) to expand its AI, data, and cloud practice. This hybrid role combines customer engagement, solution architecture, hands-on engineering, and business growth. You will work with customers to understand complex business challenges, shape technical solutions, build prototypes, and deliver enterprise-grade systems through production deployment. The ideal candidate is a senior hands-on architect or lead engineer who combines strong technical expertise with commercial awareness, customer-facing skills, and technical leadership. Key Responsibilities * Engage with customers early to understand business and technical requirements and define solution strategies. * Develop proposals, solution architectures, delivery plans, effort estimates, and team structures. * Build MVPs, proofs of concept, demos, and prototypes to demonstrate business value. * Design enterprise-grade AI, data, and cloud solutions from concept through production. * Develop AI-powered systems using Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, agentic workflows, and context engineering. * Design modern data platforms, event-driven and streaming architectures, search solutions, and analytics capabilities. * Contribute hands-on throughout delivery, including coding, code reviews, and mentoring technical teams. * Use AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate development and promote modern engineering practices. * Collaborate with customers and cross-functional teams to ensure successful delivery and go-live. * Act as a trusted technical advisor to stakeholders, from engineering teams to executive leadership. Required Qualifications * Degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience. * At least 5 years of hands-on software engineering experience, ideally 8+ years in complex enterprise environments. * Strong communication and stakeholder management skills across technical and business audiences. * Experience with customer workshops, solution consulting, proposal development, and effort estimation. * Proven ability to build prototypes and MVPs and evolve them into production-ready solutions. * Practical experience implementing Generative AI solutions, including LLMs, prompt engineering, context engineering, and AI-assisted development tools. * Experience designing distributed systems and microservices on AWS and/or Azure. * Hands-on enterprise experience with Apache Kafka is required. * Strong expertise in Java and Spring Boot. * Strong Elasticsearch experience highly preferred. * Familiarity with React or Angular and enterprise application architectures. * Authorization to work in the United States. * Fluency in English. Preferred Qualifications * Experience with Databricks; Snowflake experience * Enterprise architecture experience, including technology roadmaps, integration strategies, architecture governance, and modernization initiatives. * Consulting or professional services experience across multiple clients and projects. * Certifications in AWS, Azure, Databricks, Confluent, Elastic, or related technologies. * Industry experience in financial services, insurance, retail, manufacturing, or life sciences. * Knowledge of DataOps, CI/CD, and automated data pipelines. * Experience with Liferay or other enterprise platforms. * Public speaking, technical writing, conference presentations, or open-source contributions. * German or Spanish language skills for collaboration with international teams. What to Expect * An entrepreneurial role combining business growth, technical consulting, solution architecture, and hands-on engineering. * Exposure to modern AI, data, and cloud technologies across multiple industries. * Direct involvement in expanding an AI and data practice. * Collaboration with colleagues across the United States and internationally. * An approximate 40% pre-sales and business growth / 60% solution design and delivery split. * Regular travel to customer sites as required. * Equal Opportunity The organization values diversity, inclusion, and collaboration and welcomes qualified candidates from all backgrounds. Work Authorization: US citizenship or green card, Must have existing US work authorization