Head Of AI Architecture And Innovation

Chief AI Architect

About the Role

We are seeking a visionary Chief AI Architect to lead the end‑to‑end architecture of next‑generation AI experiences. In this role, you will define and own the full software development and delivery lifecycle for AI systems deployed across millions of devices. You will work at the intersection of cross‑device runtimes, hybrid AI execution, orchestration frameworks, and model tuning, ensuring our AI capabilities are scalable, secure, reliable, and privacy‑focused.

This is a high‑impact leadership position shaping the future of AI delivery across cloud and edge environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture for the full software development and delivery cycle of AI experiences, ensuring performance, scalability, and security across global device fleets.
• Architect hybrid AI execution models spanning on‑device inference and cloud‑based processing, including routing, orchestration, and policy enforcement.
• Establish engineering standards for release pipelines, governance, OTA rollouts, and rollback mechanisms.
• Drive cross‑team architectural alignment, making pragmatic tradeoffs to ensure features ship on time and at scale.
• Partner closely with Infrastructure, Security, and Compliance teams to eliminate bottlenecks and maintain enterprise‑grade safeguards.
• Mentor engineers, elevating technical depth and execution excellence across the organization.
• Build future‑proof, extensible architectures that support SDKs, third‑party agent integrations, and rapid innovation.

Essential Qualifications

• 15 years of software engineering and architecture experience delivering large‑scale, production‑grade systems.
• Expertise architecting cross‑device runtimes with deep cloud integration.
• Proven experience delivering software with global OTA rollouts and preload governance.
• Strong understanding of the full AI stack, including agentic orchestration, model runtimes, and distributed inference.
• Deep proficiency with the Microsoft ecosystem and Azure cloud.

Additional Skills & Preferred Experience

• Experience designing complex distributed systems and cloud‑native platforms.
• Demonstrated success shipping AI‑driven or distributed software systems at scale.
• Strong understanding of hybrid AI architectures (local cloud inference).
• Experience leading globally distributed engineering teams in agile environments.
• Startup experience is a plus.
• Full‑stack architectural experience (front‑end back‑end).

Work Environment

• Fully remote role with approximately 15% travel.
• Startup‑like culture with significant ownership and growth opportunities.
• Work on a product designed to run across all device types—from software platforms to hardware‑integrated systems.

This is a Permanent position based out of Chicago, IL.

The pay range for this position is $300000.00 - $475000.00/yr.

Bonus Structure and company incentives

This is a fully remote position.

This position is anticipated to close on Mar 6, 2026.

About Actalent

Actalent is a global leader in engineering and sciences services and talent solutions. We help visionary companies advance their engineering and science initiatives through access to specialized experts who drive scale, innovation and speed to market. With a network of almost 30,000 consultants and more than 4,500 clients across the U.S., Canada, Asia and Europe, Actalent serves many of the Fortune 500.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and will consider all applications without regard to race, sex, age, color, religion, national origin, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information or any characteristic protected by law.

If you would like to request a reasonable accommodation, such as the modification or adjustment of the job application process or interviewing due to a disability, please email actalentaccommodation@actalentservices.com for other accommodation options.

Salary : $300,000 - $475,000