AI DevOps Architect
About The Position
McDermott, Will & Schulte LLP is building one of the most ambitious AI programs in the legal industry — and the infrastructure beneath it needs to be architected to match. The AI Dev/Ops Architect is the senior technical authority for how AI solutions are deployed and operated at MWS — owning the CI/CD pipeline architecture, setting the deployment standards every solution must meet, and ensuring new solutions reach production reliably. This is an architecture leadership role: define how things get built, set the bar, and hold the team to it. WHY MWS Define the architecture for an AI program that is genuinely among the most ambitious in the legal industry Senior technical leadership role — define the pipeline architecture for an entirely new category of legal AI tools Work with frontier AI platforms at enterprise scale, with executive sponsorship and real investment Remote-first, high-caliber technical team that takes production quality seriously
Requirements
- 8+ years of experience in solutions architecture, cloud infrastructure, or DevOps engineering, with demonstrated leadership in defining and governing technical standards
- Deep expertise in Microsoft Azure — Azure Container Apps, Azure DevOps, Azure API Management, and Azure Monitor; Azure certifications strongly preferred
- Proven experience designing enterprise CI/CD pipelines — YAML authoring, multi-stage releases, branching strategies, deployment gates, environment management, and rollback procedures
- Working knowledge of AI/ML infrastructure patterns — LLM API integration, token management, prompt caching, and the operational characteristics of AI-powered applications
- Exceptional ability to communicate complex architecture decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences — you can present an architecture review to a managing partner as clearly as to an engineer
- Demonstrated track record of establishing and enforcing technical standards across a delivery team without direct management authority
- BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent demonstrated experience
Nice To Haves
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (Bicep, Terraform, or ARM templates) for Azure environment management
- Familiarity with AI-specific deployment considerations — model versioning, prompt configuration management, and LLM API integration patterns in production
- Exposure to container orchestration and Azure Container Apps for deploying AI-powered microservices
- Experience working alongside a dedicated security team to translate security requirements into pipeline and deployment design
Responsibilities
- Design and own the CI/CD pipeline architecture for the AI Solutions Delivery team — defining baseline standards, deployment patterns, quality gates, and rollback procedures that all AI solutions must follow
- Onboard new AI solutions into the production pipeline — working with analysts and the QA team to ensure each solution meets architectural standards before go-live, and that its pipeline integration is repeatable and maintainable
- Own and evolve the Azure DevOps infrastructure underpinning the firm's AI program, including pipeline configuration, environment management, release strategies, and monitoring and alerting standards
- Define and enforce deployment governance standards — branching strategies, environment promotion rules, configuration management, and infrastructure-as-code practices across the delivery team
- Partner with the firm's security team to ensure all pipeline and deployment architecture aligns with security requirements — translating security guidance into concrete pipeline design decisions
- Conduct pipeline and infrastructure reviews of solutions built by the delivery team, providing authoritative guidance and ensuring adherence to firm standards before production deployment
Benefits
- Successful candidates will be provided with outstanding career opportunities and will receive a competitive total rewards package with the opportunity to earn performance-based bonuses.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Number of Employees
1-10 employees
