Enterprise AI and Data Architect

Job Description

About the opportunity

You’ll be the enterprise architect for data and AI across all seven of our business units. You’ll set the architecture, standards and shared platform that every team builds on, so business units can focus on building products that set them apart, within clear guardrails for security, governance and interoperability.

A big part of the job is drawing the line between what we build once centrally (the shared foundation, platform services and standards) and what each business unit owns and builds for itself. You’ll be accountable for making sure our AI and data investments deliver measurable business results and a lasting competitive advantage.

This is a hands-on role. You’ll spend 60 to 80% of your time building.

What you’ll do

Architecture and standards

• Own the enterprise target architecture for data and AI, and publish and maintain reference architectures, standards and decision records
• Set architectural principles: modularity, API-first design, interoperability, reuse, portability and lifecycle management
• Decide what’s central by default, what becomes central once reuse is proven, what stays with business units, and what’s jointly owned
• Give clear guidance on which technologies, models and patterns to use for which job
• Keep a forward-looking view of AI technologies, vendors, models and frameworks

Agentic AI platform

• Help shape the reference architecture for model access, context management, orchestration, retrieval, evaluations, guardrails, identity and telemetry
• Help design multi-tenancy patterns that scale to 130,000+ businesses, including agents built by customers and partners
• Set release requirements for agents: approvals, versioning, rollback, guardrails as policy code and evaluation gates

Data architecture

• Set enterprise data standards on Snowflake: semantic layer, governed metrics, data contracts, quality rules, lineage, retention and deletion
• Define the split between central standards and business-unit domain models, and review those models for consistency
• Define the technical criteria for data readiness used in product planning
• Work with Legal and Privacy on the data architecture for our industry insights product, covering rights, aggregation, consent and lineage

Standards for AI-assisted development

• Turn standards into context that AI coding agents use: repository instruction files, reusable skills and prompts, MCP tool definitions and starter templates
• Build architecture rules into CI: policy as code, fitness functions, scans on AI-generated code, and evaluation gates before release
• Define what coding and runtime agents can do in each environment, including tool allow-lists, least-privilege access, no secrets or card data in prompts or logs, and human review based on risk
• Set patterns for wrapping legacy products with MCP and for AI-assisted migration
• Track delivery metrics such as PR-to-production rate, rework within 21 days, change failure rate and AI cost per accepted change

Security, privacy and responsible AI

• Work with the AI Security Architect, CISO, Legal and Privacy to build security into every reference architecture: threat models, least privilege, tenant isolation, prompt-injection defences and server-side action validation
• Make sure the architecture supports data residency, tenant isolation, retention, deletion and contractual data-use limits
• Assess risks from model providers, external AI services, open-source models, training data, dependencies and third-party integrations

Cost, observability and reliability

• Design cost control into the platform: cost tracking by business unit, product and workflow, token and latency budgets, caching and kill switches
• Optimise token use, model choice, context size, retrieval efficiency and compute
• Define a standard telemetry schema in Datadog covering outcome, quality, cost and security signals
• Set service-level objectives for central platform services

Governance and vendors

• Set up an AI and data governance framework covering ownership, accountability, decision rights, data quality and escalation
• Chair the fortnightly Data and AI Architecture, Security and Risk Council, and present trade-offs to the Executive AI Steering group
• Lead technical evaluation of AI platforms, models and data tools, and reduce overlap and lock-in (one gateway, abstraction layers, a tested exit plan)
• Set technical standards for consultants, including code in Xplor repos, pairing with our engineers and knowledge transfer

Leadership and mentoring

• Advise the Chief AI Officer on architecture, technology investment and emerging risk, in business terms
• Lead the community of business-unit architects and mentor engineers, with scope to grow a small team of 2 to 3 architects

This position has an annual base salary range of $173,000 to $193,000 USD.

This is a fully remote role open to candidates based anywhere in the U.S., excluding Hawaii and Alaska. We’d prefer candidates in the Eastern or Central time zones.

#LI-Remote

Qualifications

What would make me a good candidate?

• 15+ years in software, data, AI or platform engineering, including at least 7 as an enterprise or principal architect
• You’ve taken LLM or agentic systems into production at scale, and you know what it takes: orchestration, retrieval, evals, guardrails, model routing and observability
• Deep experience in enterprise data architecture, ideally on Snowflake, including semantic layers, governed metrics, data modelling, entity resolution, data quality and lineage
• You’ve designed multi-tenant SaaS platforms with strict tenant isolation and identity propagation
• You’ve worked with regulated data and know how to design for compliance from the start
• You’ve led architecture across multiple products or business units, ideally after acquisitions, where you had to bring together a mix of modern and legacy technology
• You still write production code, and engineers respect your code reviews
• You’ve set up architecture governance (review boards, standards, waivers) that teams actually used rather than worked around
• You understand the cost side of AI, including token budgets, cost per task and FinOps for AI workloads
• You can explain technical trade-offs to executives and the board in plain business terms

It would be great if you also have

• Hands-on production experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP), agent frameworks or an LLM gateway
• Led a build-vs-buy decision for an AI platform, including contract, IP and exit terms
• A background in vertical SaaS
• Experience with Datadog or similar observability tools for AI systems, and OpenTelemetry
• Familiarity with AI risk frameworks such as NIST AI RMF and ISO/IEC 42001, and the EU AI Act
• Experience with data residency and privacy rules across AU, NZ, US, UK and EU
• Modernised legacy monoliths, including wrapping them with APIs so agents can use them

At Xplor, we believe that the best innovation and ideas happen at the intersection of differences - people of different cultures, generations, disciplines, and lived experiences. So even if you think you don’t quite tick all the boxes, we still encourage you to apply.

Additional Information

Values and Life at Xplor

Our five core values guide us from how we hire and recognise our team members to how we interact with our customers day to day:

• Find a better way
• Do the right thing
• Say it straight
• Win together
• Own the outcome

If these values sound like you, and describe people you want to work with, you will thrive at Xplor.

As an Xplorer, you will be part of a global network of talented colleagues who will support your success. We look for commonalities and shared passions and give people the tools they need to deliver great work and grow at speed.

Some of our perks and benefits are:

• Paid Parental Leave benefit programs
• #GiveBackDays/Commitment to social impact – 3 extra days off to volunteer and give back to your local community
• Ongoing dedication to Diversity & Inclusion initiatives such as D&I Council, Global Mentorship Program
• Access to free mental health support
• Flexible working arrangements

Ready to apply?

To start your application, please submit your resume, and we will be in touch as soon as we can. Please include the word "moonshot" at the top of your message to the Hiring Manager so that we know you took the time to read our job ad.

Before you apply

To be considered for employment, you must be legally authorized to work in the country where the role is advertised. This applies to remote roles too. Xplor does not sponsor visas, either at the time of hire or at any later time. We're also not able to offer contractor arrangements or Employer of Record engagements for this position at this stage.

Please apply through our careers portal or external job boards only. We're unable to upload emailed applications, as our process requires you to answer screening questions directly.

We also invite you to check out our Candidate FAQs for more information about our recruitment process xplor.com/recruitment-faqs/.

Interview Recording and Background Checks

As part of our hiring process, successful candidates will be asked to complete background and identity verification checks. Many of our roles are remote, and to protect both candidates and our business from recruitment fraud, we may record video interviews during the process. We keep any recordings and related data only for as long as the hiring process is active and do not retain them afterwards.

EEO and Artificial Intelligence

We believe in transparent hiring. We use an applicant tracking system with artificial intelligence-enabled features to support our recruitment process, but our recruitment team makes all hiring decisions after human review. We do not rely on artificial intelligence to make final hiring decisions. Find our Candidate AI Usage guidelines here.

Xplor is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We're dedicated to attracting, retaining and developing our people regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, veteran status and age. We encourage applications from all sectors of the community. All Information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. 

Xplor is committed to fully including all qualified individuals. In keeping with our commitment, Xplor will take steps to ensure people with disabilities receive reasonable accommodations. Accordingly, if reasonable accommodation is required to fully participate in the job application or interview process, to perform the essential functions of the position, and/or to receive all other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact us via [email protected]. 

We make it a priority to respond to every applicant.