Principal Architect AI Platform

BMO•Chicago, IL

1d•$100,000 - $220,000

About The Position

BMO is establishing a dedicated AI Engineering function and seeks its architectural authority to own architectural coherence for AI across the bank’s cloud and workspace estates, including AWS, Azure, Microsoft 365, and SaaS AI surfaces, within OSFI and OCC regulatory environments. The role provides architectural oversight across AI Platform capabilities including Developer Experience, Security, DevOps, and Data Analytics, coordinating across teams and organizations to deliver a cohesive AI platform and prevent fragmentation and rework. The architect sets enterprise AI architectural direction and serves as standing architectural authority to the Microsoft AI Council. The role prepares cross-organizational decisions for Council ratification, adjudicates Microsoft AI boundary questions, evaluates preview features against bank governance, and escalates unresolved disputes to Enterprise Architecture, the formal arbiter. It ensures that the Control Plane, Domain Orchestration, and domain-owned execution form a coherent, governed architecture, and that decisions produce model-risk and regulatory evidence at runtime by design. The position defines and maintains target architectures, reference architectures, standards, and guardrails; governs major AI initiatives; and represents designs at the Architecture Review Board. It oversees architectural coherence across BMO’s Microsoft AI surface, including Copilot, Copilot Studio, Fabric Copilot, and Microsoft Agent 365, across two operating organizations. It also assesses emerging AI capabilities and models, partners with platform and domain teams to implement architectural direction, mentors architects and principal engineers, and stewards transition architectures for AI-incubated platforms as they mature toward enterprise ownership.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
10+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, and enterprise architecture, including substantial time at principal or senior architect level setting direction across multiple teams.
3+ years focused on AI/ML and GenAI architecture, including hands-on exposure to production GenAI systems such as RAG, agentic workflows, model serving, and guardrails.
Demonstrated experience holding cross-team or cross-organizational architectural authority, setting standards others must follow, and aligning senior stakeholders without direct reporting lines.
Experience architecting AI in a regulated industry and a working understanding of model-risk management and regulatory expectations such as OSFI, OCC, or equivalent.
Ability to establish architectural coherence across multiple teams and organizations through target-state architecture, standards, and governance, including handling contested decisions.
Executive presence and influence, sound judgment under ambiguity, and diplomacy to align organizations with different mandates.
Strong mentoring and technical leadership across architects and principal engineers.
Experience chairing or supporting governance forums, preparing decisions for ratification, and managing structured escalation.
Deep AI/ML and GenAI solution architecture knowledge, including RAG, agentic frameworks, prompt patterns, fine-tuning, foundation models, embeddings, and vector stores.
Strong understanding of AI platform architecture, including AI gateways, policy-as-code and authorization (such as Cedar and OPA), workload identity and zero-trust (such as SPIFFE/SPIRE and federated identity), guardrails, and AI observability.
Multi-cloud architecture experience across AWS and Azure, plus Microsoft AI surfaces including M365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Fabric, and Agent 365; cloud security and IAM as applied to AI workloads.
Integration architecture connecting AI to enterprise systems through APIs, event-driven patterns, and data services.
Working knowledge of MLOps/LLMOps, CI/CD, and translating architectural decisions into deployable, operable patterns.
Sufficient hands-on fluency to prototype and evaluate approaches and earn engineering credibility.
Grounding in Responsible AI, AI/data governance, privacy, and evaluation and guardrail design.
Experience embedding regulatory and model-risk evidence requirements into architecture for runtime production.
Strong interpersonal, communication, and facilitation skills across technical and business audiences.
Critical thinking, research, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
Self-directed and comfortable operating with a broad mandate and ambiguity.
Ability to work under tight timelines on complex, high-stakes decisions.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional certification.
AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty certification.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification.
Azure AI Engineer Associate certification.
Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer certification.
TOGAF or equivalent enterprise architecture certification.
Relevant GenAI/LLM credentials.

Responsibilities

Define and maintain the enterprise target AI architecture, reference architectures, architectural standards, and guardrails for platform capabilities and domain workloads.
Set architectural direction across the function’s Directors and squads, including Platform & Fabrics and Developer Experience, and across Security, DevOps, and Data Engineering; resolve competing approaches into a coherent architecture.
Provide architectural governance for major AI initiatives, reviewing designs for coherence, scalability, security, cost, residency, Responsible AI, and regulatory fit, and represent them at the Architecture Review Board.
Serve as standing architectural authority to the Microsoft AI Council: prepare cross-organizational architecture decisions for ratification, adjudicate Microsoft AI boundary questions, and evaluate preview features against bank governance.
Maintain architectural coherence across BMO’s Microsoft AI surfaces, including Copilot, Copilot Studio, Fabric Copilot, and Microsoft Agent 365, across two operating organizations, including the Three-Zone citizen governance framework and federation with the AI Registry.
Lead assessment of emerging AI capabilities, foundation models, and architectural approaches, translating market changes into deliberate architectural positions for the bank.
Partner with AI Platform & Fabrics to ensure platform capabilities—including Gateway, Policy Engine, Identity Fabric, Registry, Guardrails, and Observability—realize the target architecture.
Partner with AI Developer Experience and Domain Solution Architects to ensure domain patterns conform to the target architecture.
Embed model-risk and regulatory evidence requirements into architecture so evidence is produced at runtime rather than retroactively.
Provide architectural mentorship and technical leadership to architects and principal engineers across the function.
Establish and steward transition architecture for AI-incubated, bank-wide-eligible platforms such as Identity Fabric and Policy Engine as they mature toward enterprise ownership.
Escalate unresolved architectural disputes to Engineering leadership and Enterprise Architecture.