Sr. AI Architect Finance - (Hybrid- Seattle, WA)

Nordstrom•Seattle, WA

7d•$166,000 - $258,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Nordstrom Finance is seeking a hands-on Principal AI Architect to design and build AI-driven reporting infrastructure that advances an “autopilot” model of financial reporting. The role will help automate routine reporting, reconciliation, variance analysis, and narrative generation through well-governed AI agents and pipelines, freeing Finance teams to focus on judgment and decision-making. The position combines architecture and engineering: the architect is expected to set technical vision and standards while personally building the code, prompts, agent orchestration, and data pipelines. This hybrid role requires working in the downtown Seattle office four days per week. The position partners with Finance leaders, FP&A, Controllership, Accounting, Data Platform, Data Governance, Security, Risk, Internal Audit, and Compliance. It establishes reliable, auditable, and appropriately controlled AI reporting solutions, determines where human review and sign-off remain necessary, and helps Finance teams adopt AI-assisted reporting through transparent design, documentation, and phased rollout.

Requirements

At least 8 years of software/data engineering or applied AI/ML experience, including production experience building and deploying AI systems.
Hands-on expertise with modern AI architectures, including LLM application design, agent orchestration/workflow frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation, and prompt/context engineering.
Strong data engineering fundamentals, including pipeline design, data quality, and integration with enterprise data platforms such as BigQuery or equivalent cloud data warehouses.
Direct experience with, or strong ability to quickly learn, financial reporting concepts and controls, including close processes, reconciliation, variance analysis, and GAAP-adjacent reporting requirements.
A track record of working simultaneously as a technical architect and an individual contributor, setting direction and building solutions.
Excellent stakeholder communication skills, including translating technical AI concepts for Finance leaders and translating Finance and controls requirements for engineers.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Architect and build end-to-end AI infrastructure for automated financial reporting, including agent orchestration, data pipelines, model integration, and human-in-the-loop review workflows.
Design systems for reliability, traceability, reproducibility, auditability, and controls.
Personally prototype and ship production-grade AI agents and pipelines using tools such as LLM APIs, retrieval systems, and workflow orchestration tools.
Partner with Finance leaders, FP&A, Controllership, and Accounting to understand reporting workflows, controls, and pain points before automating them.
Work with Data Platform, Data Governance, and Security teams to ensure financial data meets classification, access, and audit requirements.
Define which reporting tasks should be automated and where human review and sign-off must remain in the process.
Set architecture standards and best practices for applied AI within Finance Technology and mentor engineers building against them.
Evaluate and select AI/ML tools, models, and platforms, including build-versus-buy decisions, for Finance use cases and the existing technology stack.
Serve as a technical expert and thought leader on applied AI for Finance, following relevant advances and translating them into roadmap decisions.
Build guardrails against model error, hallucination, and drift.
Partner with Risk, Internal Audit, and Compliance as needed to support internal control and regulatory expectations.
Help Finance teams build trust in AI-assisted reporting through transparent design, clear documentation, and phased rollout.