Principal AI Architect - Director

Citi • New York, NY

7d • $170,000 - $300,000

About The Position

The Principal AI Architect is a senior executive technical authority responsible for defining, establishing, and governing the enterprise architectural vision for autonomous agentic systems and multi-agent frameworks across Citigroup. The role serves as Citi’s chief technical authority for autonomous systems and multi-agent frameworks, co-owning enterprise blueprints, review gates, playbooks, and the Product/Platform Loop bridging field implementations with core internal platforms, including Arc Platform, R2D2 Gateway, Agentflow, and Helix.

The role provides technical leadership for enterprise architectures and governance, partners with platform teams to translate field implementation needs into platform capabilities, and advises senior business and technology leaders on AI paradigms, validation, and foundation models. It also carries responsibility for appropriate risk assessment, regulatory and policy compliance, ethical conduct, transparent escalation and reporting of control issues, and effective supervision and accountability.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive software architecture and engineering experience in enterprise, distributed systems, or financial technology environments.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience architecting and deploying production LLM-powered applications, multi-agent systems, and autonomous agentic workflows, such as LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, Semantic Kernel, or Agent Development Kit / ADK.
• Mastery of Python and/or Golang, OpenShift/Kubernetes, distributed microservices, OAuth2/JWT token delegation, API gateway management, and enterprise telemetry such as OpenTelemetry and Splunk.
• Deep understanding of financial services compliance, Model Risk Management standards, and deterministic validation methodologies for non-deterministic AI outputs.
• Demonstrated leadership and a track record of chairing technical governance bodies and influencing enterprise-level architectural direction.
• Clear, concise, and persuasive executive-level written and verbal communication.
• Bachelor’s/University degree or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI/ML, or a related technical field is strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the chief technical authority for autonomous systems, multi-agent frameworks, and hierarchical sub-agent architectures across Citi's global technology footprint.
• Author and maintain enterprise reference architectures and blueprints for single-agent, hierarchical sub-agent, and Human-in-the-Loop workflows, ensuring adherence across delivery pods.
• Act as the primary technical bridge in the Product/Platform Feedback Loop with the Arc Core, R2D2 Gateway, and Agentflow platform teams, translating field friction from line-of-business deployments into core platform features.
• Chair the Agent Architecture Review Board (AARB) and conduct mandatory technical, architectural, and security reviews for high-risk AI agents before UAT and production promotion.
• Define enterprise standards for Model Context Protocol server integration, zero-trust boundary enforcement via Tiramisu proxies, and COIN M2M identity token delegation.
• Establish horizontal governance, code quality, testability, and automated evaluation standards across Forward Deployed Engineering pods.
• Advise senior business and technology leadership on emerging AI paradigms, non-deterministic system validation, and foundation model capabilities.
• Assess risk in business decisions; drive compliance with applicable laws, rules, regulations, and policy; apply sound ethical judgment; escalate, manage, and report control issues transparently; and supervise activity and create accountability.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k)
• Life, accident, and disability insurance
• Wellness programs
• Paid time off, including planned vacation, unplanned sick leave, and paid holidays
• Eligible employees may receive discretionary and formulaic incentive and retention awards

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior