Lead AI Architect - Federal

DataRobot•Washington, DC

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

DataRobot delivers AI that maximizes impact and minimizes business risk. Our platform and applications integrate into core business processes so teams can develop, deliver, and govern AI at scale. DataRobot empowers practitioners to deliver predictive and generative AI, and enables leaders to secure their AI assets. Organizations worldwide rely on DataRobot for AI that makes sense for their business — today and in the future. As a member of the Professional Services team, AI Architects help position, sell, and support the DataRobot platform as the gold standard for AI in enterprises and overcome any barriers to delivering DataRobot for customers. You will work hand-in-hand with Customer Success, Sales, Product, Engineering, and Marketing to help us bring our platform to clients and prospects in the public sector space. You will be responsible for providing the technical expertise to support the installation, configuration, upgrading, and integration of DataRobot into customer environments. You will have a broad range of skills and experience spanning systems architecture, ETL flow design, security engineering, cloud computing, Kubernetes orchestration, and more. You will have demonstrated experience deploying and maintaining technical platforms in both unclassificed and classified environments, navigating federal security and compliance requirements, and responding to Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) to ensure platform integrity and operational continuity. You will have the insight to make the connection between a customer’s specific business problems and DataRobot’s solution and the customer-facing skills to communicate that connection and vision to a wide variety of technical and executive audiences. Furthermore you will have the skills to provide consultative assistance on architecture and implementation of the customer’s business problem, usually through partnership with IT teams within federal government agencies. As the AI Architect for the Federal Sector, you will also serve as a liaison between Product, Engineering, and the Federal business. You will apply your expertise in Federal infosec requirements, the Risk Management Framework, and FedRAMP and Agency authorization processes to inform how the Product evolves to meet Federal requirements and maintain continuous Authority to Operate (ATO). Please note: You must be a U.S. Citizen with an active US DoW Secret security clearance to be eligible for this role. If you do not meet these criteria, you will not be considered for the position. What does it take? Shares our passion for delivering AI and machine learning for enterprises and thrives in the dynamic AI environment.

Requirements

Federal Domain Mastery: 7+ years in Federal engineering with 3+ years supporting IL5/IL6+ environments. You must have a proven track record navigating the full ATO lifecycle, managing RMF processes, and handling Continuous Monitoring (ConMon) for FedRAMP and Agency-specific authorizations.
Kubernetes and Secure Enclaves: Deep production expertise with AKS, EKS, or OpenShift. You are an expert at architecting and maintaining production-grade clusters in air-gapped, egress-constrained, or "high-side" disconnected environments (CKA/CKAD preferred).
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Advanced proficiency with Terraform/OpenTofu for immutable infrastructure provisioning and Ansible/Puppet for automated configuration management and drift detection.
Linux Hardening & SecOps: Hands-on mastery of Linux systems with a focus on STIG/CIS hardening, automated patch management, and rapid CVE/vulnerability triage within secure enclaves.
System Administration: Operational support for production systems covering for system administration, integrations, monitoring, capacity planning, user provisioning, and coordination of maintenance windows.
Modern DevSecOps: Demonstrated experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines on K8s using tools like GitLab, Helm, Flux, or Argo.
AI/ML Infrastructure: Understanding of the infrastructure requirements for AI/ML workloads, including GPU partitioning/scheduling, model serving architecture, and data egress challenges in a federal context.
Strategic Communication: Excellent oral and written skills, with the ability to translate complex technical risks into actionable insights for technical teams and executive stakeholders.
Education: Bachelors in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent high-level work experience.
Clearance: Active Secret clearance (required); TS/SCI (highly preferred).
Logistics: Willingness to be on-site at local (DC area) client facilities up to 50% during peak project phases, with approximately 20% regional travel.
Must be a US citizen.
Must have an active Secret clearance.

Nice To Haves

Certified Kubernetes Administrator
AWS Certified Solutions Architect or AWS Certified DevOps Engineer certification.

Responsibilities

Lead the professional services effort to plan and execute successful installations, upgrades, and security accreditation in DataRobot’s Federal customer base, including managing CVE remediation and timely patch response within classified and sensitive environments.
Have the flexibility and willingness to jump in and get what needs to be done to make DataRobot and our customers successful.
Provide consultative assistance on architecture and implementation.
Deploy and operate DataRobot solutions within FedRAMP Authorized, IL5, and IL6 classified environments, ensuring compliance with applicable security controls, continuous monitoring requirements, and CVE response SLAs.
Support pre-sales activities including architectural overviews, security review, and scoping of professional services activities.
Keep up to date on the ever-evolving technologies for systems architecture, AI/ML, and LLM/MLOps to be an authoritative resource for both DataRobot and customers.
Work collaboratively with a broad range of people inside and outside the company.
May support, oversee, and/or train technical members of DataRobot partner organizations as it pertains to architecture, administration, and maintenance of the DataRobot platform.