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

Nordstrom•Seattle, WA

5d•$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 Finance toward automated, well-governed financial reporting. The role combines architecture and engineering: setting technical vision and standards while personally developing code, prompts, agent orchestration, and data pipelines for production use. The position is hybrid and requires working in Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle office four days per week. The architect will build reliable and auditable AI systems for financial reporting, including agent orchestration, data pipelines, model integration, and human-in-the-loop review. They will partner with Finance leaders and teams across data, security, risk, audit, and compliance to understand workflows and controls, define appropriate automation boundaries, and ensure AI-assisted reporting meets data, audit, internal control, and regulatory expectations. The role also establishes applied AI standards, evaluates tools and platforms, mentors engineers, and helps Finance teams adopt AI through transparent design, documentation, and phased rollout.

Requirements

At least 8 years of software or data engineering or applied AI/ML experience, including production experience building and deploying AI systems.
Deep hands-on expertise in modern AI architectures, including LLM application design, agent orchestration or 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 an equivalent cloud data warehouse.
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.
Demonstrated ability to operate simultaneously as a technical architect and individual contributor, setting direction while personally building systems.
Excellent stakeholder communication skills, including explaining technical AI concepts to 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 appropriate controls.
Personally prototype and ship production-grade AI agents and pipelines using technologies 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 loop.
Set architecture standards and best practices for applied AI within Finance Technology and mentor engineers building to those standards.
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 the primary technical expert and thought leader on applied AI for Finance; track developments and translate relevant advances into roadmap decisions.
Build guardrails against model error, hallucination, and drift.
Partner with Risk, Internal Audit, and Compliance as needed to ensure AI-generated reporting meets internal control and regulatory expectations.
Support Finance teams in building trust in AI-assisted reporting through transparent design, clear documentation, and phased rollout.