Principal AI Architect
McKesson•Irving, TX
•$225,200 - $375,400
About The Position
The Principal AI Architect, Responsible AI is the enterprise’s chief technical authority on responsible AI design and governance-by-architecture. This individual defines the standards, reference architectures, and technical guardrails that ensure every AI/ML system, from classical ML to agentic AI, meets regulatory, ethical, and quality thresholds before reaching production. The role bridges deep technical fluency with enterprise strategy, translating board-level risk appetite into enforceable architectural patterns across the full AI lifecycle.
Requirements
- Degree or equivalent and typically requires 13+ years, with 8+ years, of direct work related experience. Less years required if has relevant Master's or Doctorate qualifications.
- Extensive experience in AI/ML engineering, architecture, or applied research with at least 3 years focused on AI governance, fairness, or safety.
- Deep expertise in at least two: bias/fairness measurement, explainability methods (SHAP, LIME, counterfactual), adversarial robustness, differential privacy, or AI safety alignment.
- Demonstrated experience authoring enterprise-level AI standards, policies, or reference architectures adopted across multiple business units.
- Strong working knowledge of regulatory frameworks: NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, ISO 42001, SOC 2 AI considerations, and sector-specific requirements (healthcare, financial services).
- Experience presenting technical governance topics to executive leadership and board-level audiences.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with agentic AI architectures and the unique governance challenges they present (tool-use authorization, multi-agent orchestration, autonomous decision boundaries).
- Contributions to responsible AI open-source projects, publications, or industry standards bodies.
- Healthcare or pharmaceutical industry experience.
- Master’s degree (in Computer Science, AI/ML, Statistics, or related quantitative field) or PhD preferred.
Responsibilities
- Define and maintain enterprise Responsible AI standards, policies, and technical guidelines covering fairness, explainability, robustness, privacy, and safety across all AI/ML modalities (predictive, generative, agentic).
- Establish model risk tiering frameworks aligned with regulatory requirements (e.g., EU AI Act risk categories, NIST AI RMF, FDA/SaMD where applicable) and map technical controls to each tier.
- Lead Enterprise Architecture Review Board (EARB) reviews for AI/ML solutions, ensuring compliance with responsible AI standards before production deployment.
- Partner with Legal, Compliance, Privacy, and InfoSec to translate regulatory and contractual obligations into testable technical requirements.
- Develop and evangelize an enterprise AI ethics review process including impact assessments, red-teaming protocols, and human-in-the-loop escalation criteria for high-risk use cases.
- Mentor and coach ML Engineers, Data Scientists, and Platform Engineers on responsible AI patterns and anti-patterns; create reusable design patterns, templates, and decision frameworks.
- Represent the enterprise’s responsible AI posture to external auditors, regulators, customers, and industry working groups.
- Track the evolving responsible AI landscape (tooling, regulation, academic research) and recommend adoption of emerging capabilities.
Benefits
- competitive compensation package
- annual bonus
- long-term incentive opportunities
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
