AI Solution Architect

Overview

As AI Solution Architect, you design and govern AI across ICT and Imperial to enable safe, scalable AI in products and platforms. You’ll collaborate with product, engineering, data and research teams to embed generative AI, ML and data-driven capabilities within Imperial’s Digital Strategy and enterprise standards. You’ll set guardrails, champion responsible AI, and provide technical leadership across architecture, governance and operations. This is a cross-cutting role shaping AI adoption in a world‑leading university, with a strong emphasis on governance, security and ethics.

Pay / Benefits

• Flexible and hybrid working
• Sector-leading salary
• 43 days’ annual leave
• Generous pension schemes
• Professional development opportunities

Responsibilities

• Lead AI solution architecture across ICT product lines and Imperial, aligning with enterprise principles and the Digital Strategy
• Design end-to-end AI solutions including generative AI, ML, data pipelines and MLOps for scalable, responsible deployment
• Define reference architectures and guardrails for AI agents (tool access, permissions, autonomy, human oversight)
• Champion responsible AI, data governance, security and regulatory compliance
• Lead governance activities via Technical Design Authority, technology working groups and communities of practice
• Provide technical leadership to delivery teams, promoting API-first, cloud-native, DevOps and platform-based architecture
• Act as the AI design authority advising product lines on responsible AI adoption
• Support research groups adopting AI tools while balancing security and data obligations

Key requirements

• Experience designing complex digital or enterprise solutions within large, diverse or federated organisations
• Experience delivering AI, ML or data-driven solutions across multiple systems or domains
• Strong understanding of AI/ML concepts, including generative AI and LLMs, and their enterprise applications
• Knowledge of data architecture, pipelines and MLOps, and familiarity with cloud AI/ML services, LLM frameworks and vector data stores
• Ability to design secure, ethical AI with guardrails, evaluation and human oversight, balancing value, risk and compliance
• Strong grasp of modern architecture approaches (cloud, APIs, microservices, secure-by-design) across multiple tech domains
• Experience across the full product/platform lifecycle from discovery to decommissioning
• Excellent communication to engage senior stakeholders and technical teams
• Desirable: awareness of AI security/regulation, architecture governance or design assurance, and experience in Higher Education

• Stakeholder engagement
• Technical leadership
• Advising and enabling teams
• Generative AI and large language models
• Data pipelines and MLOps
• Cloud AI/ML services and LLM frameworks

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