AI Application Solutions Architect

Gallagher • Rolling Meadows, IL

8d

About The Position

The AI Solutions Architect determines the technical design of Gallagher’s AI solutions before development and ensures those designs remain effective in production. Reporting to the Director of AI Technology, the role translates business problems into deliverable architectures, selecting appropriate approaches such as RAG, agents, workflows, or no AI, and determining the platform, integrations, identity, and data design for a regulated global insurance business. The architect owns reference architectures and architecture decisions, partnering with senior AI Engineering and Gallagher’s enterprise architecture, security, and data teams. This is a hands-on role that involves prototyping and closely evaluating Azure AI platform capabilities.

The position defines and maintains architectures for RAG, single- and multi-agent systems, and Copilot extensibility using Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Cosmos DB, and Azure compute. It also leads technical discovery, makes and documents platform and pattern decisions, incorporates governance and data residency requirements, builds proofs of concept, reviews designs, architects enterprise integrations, and establishes boundaries between pro-code and low-code solutions. The role evaluates emerging models and frameworks and specifies approaches to quality measurement, production observability, cost management, and ongoing operations.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering or solution architecture.
• 3+ years owning architecture for enterprise cloud solutions.
• 2+ years designing LLM/GenAI systems such as RAG, agents, or Copilot extensions, including systems that reached production.
• Hands-on production experience with Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, and Azure AI Search, including retrieval design and Foundry Agent Service.
• Strong command of Azure compute, integration, data, networking, and security services, including Functions, Container Apps, AKS, App Service, API Management, Service Bus, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage, Azure SQL, VNets, Private Link, Key Vault, and managed identity.
• Experience designing within an enterprise identity and control model, including Entra ID, Azure RBAC, Azure Policy, data residency, and audit logging, and defending designs through security and risk review.
• Ability to build working prototypes and read production code in Python and C#/.NET.
• Track record of producing reference architectures, ADRs, and solution designs used by delivery teams, and leading architecture reviews across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Experience defining AI system quality measures, including test sets, groundedness and accuracy metrics, and regression checks.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills to explain architecture trade-offs to senior business leaders and engineers.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in insurance, financial services, or healthcare, with exposure to NAIC AI model governance, model risk management, or SOX-type controls.
• Experience with Microsoft Agent Framework, Semantic Kernel, LangChain/LangGraph, or AutoGen, and MCP and A2A integration patterns.
• Experience with M365 Copilot extensibility, Copilot Studio, and Agent 365, including pro-code agents in Teams and M365 Copilot.
• Experience designing Terraform- or Bicep-deployed infrastructure with policy-as-code guardrails.
• Experience with provisioned-throughput versus pay-as-you-go trade-offs, quota and throughput planning, and token-cost modeling across environments.
• Experience with automated evaluation pipelines, red-teaming, Application Insights or OpenTelemetry tracing, and drift and cost monitoring.
• Experience integrating Snowflake or similar data platforms with AI solutions, including Entra ID federation.
• Experience using spec-driven workflows and AI coding assistants to accelerate design-to-software delivery.
• AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert), AI-103 (Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate), or equivalent demonstrated architecture ownership.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical discovery with business stakeholders and the AI Business Analyst, turning ambiguous requests into solution options with clear trade-offs, feasibility, effort, and run-cost estimates; recommend against AI when a simpler solution is more appropriate.
• Define and maintain reference architectures for RAG, single- and multi-agent systems, and Copilot extensibility on Microsoft Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Cosmos DB, and Azure compute.
• Make platform and architecture decisions covering model selection, retrieval design, agent setup, data stores, messaging, and hosting; record decisions as architecture decision records (ADRs) and explain them to executives and engineers.
• Incorporate compliance, identity, security, and data residency requirements into architecture, including Entra ID/RBAC, managed identity, Azure Policy, private networking, model deployment choices, Gallagher-owned storage, audit logging, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints.
• Build proofs of concept and technical spikes in Python and C#/.NET to test assumptions about retrieval quality, latency, cost, and platform limits.
• Review solution designs from AI developers, the AI Workflow Architect, and partner teams; identify integration, security, scalability, and cost issues; represent the AI program in enterprise architecture and security review forums.
• Architect integrations between AI solutions and Gallagher systems of record and data platforms using Azure API Management, Service Bus, Azure Functions, MCP servers, and Snowflake within the enterprise identity model.
• Partner with the AI Workflow Architect to define which solutions belong in Copilot Studio and Power Platform versus pro-code Foundry, and design integration between them.
• Evaluate emerging models, Foundry capabilities, agent frameworks, and agent protocols against Gallagher use cases, and provide adopt, trial, or hold recommendations to the Director of AI Technology.
• Specify evaluation, production observability, and cost controls for solutions, including quality measures, capacity and token-cost models, quota planning, and model-version lifecycle.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation.
• Comprehensive benefits programs designed to support well-being.
• Career development opportunities and ongoing learning.
• A collaborative, people-first culture with accessible leadership.
• The opportunity to do meaningful work with global reach and local impact.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior