AI Evangelist & Chief Architect

Overview

REI Systems’ mission is to deliver reliable, innovative technology solutions that advance Federal clients' missions and exceed their expectations. Our technologists and consultants are passionate about solving complex challenges that impact millions of lives. We take a Mindful Modernization® approach in delivering our services, including application modernization, grants management, case management systems, government data analytics, and advisory services. This approach, the REI Way, ensures mission impact by aligning our clients' strategic objectives with measurable outcomes through people, processes, and technology.  We offer the same commitment to our employees by providing professional development, meaningful projects, and flexibility to spend time with family and friends. We believe employees are at their best when fulfilled in both their professional careers and their personal lives. Learn more at www.REIsystems.com.  Employees voted REI Systems a Washington Post Top Workplace in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025!

Responsibilities

Position Overview:

REI Systems is seeking an experienced AI Evangelist & Chief Architect to provide strategic and technical leadership in the adoption, architecture, and implementation of Artificial Intelligence across complex enterprise and Federal environments, with a dedicated focus on REI's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) account. This individual will help define the AI vision, identify high-value opportunities, establish reusable AI architecture patterns, and guide the delivery of secure, scalable, responsible, and mission-aligned AI solutions.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise in Generative AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, cloud architecture, and enterprise integration with the ability to engage executives, business leaders, program teams, and technical stakeholders. This role will help customers move from AI experimentation to sustainable enterprise adoption, while personally serving as the face of REI's AI capability across the FDA account.

This is a dual-mandate role. On the business side, the individual will collaborate with REI's Business Development leads to build trusted relationships with FDA program and IT leadership, and help shape and win new AI-enabled opportunities. On the technical side, the individual will operate as a hands-on Chief Architect personally designing, guiding, and quality-reviewing the AI architecture delivered across the SIRCE and SCAIL programs while mentoring the technical and AI architects who deliver that work day to day.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the face of REI's AI practice at FDA — walking alongside REI's Business Development (BD) leads on the FDA campus and building trusted relationships with FDA program, IT, and mission leadership.
• Represent REI in CIO-level briefings and forums, and partner with BD and capture teams to identify, shape, and win new AI-enabled opportunities across the FDA and other related Federal Civilian Agencies.
• Define and communicate an enterprise AI vision, strategy, roadmap, and reference architecture aligned with customer mission and business priorities, with primary ownership of the AI vision and roadmap for REI's presence at FDA.
• Identify and evaluate high-value AI, Generative AI, machine learning, agentic AI, and intelligent automation use cases.
• Design scalable AI architectures incorporating Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents, machine learning, APIs, data platforms, and cloud-native services.
• Establish reusable AI architecture patterns, frameworks, accelerators, and implementation standards.
• Champion and apply REI's AI platforms as the governed foundation for AI solutions delivered within the FDA account, ensuring alignment with REI's broader AI product strategy.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for AI pilots, proofs of concept, prototypes, and enterprise-scale production implementations, personally architecting and reviewing production AI components within FDA’s IT portfolio powering inspections, imports, recalls, compliance, and enforcement.
• Evaluate commercial, open-source, and cloud-native AI technologies and recommend appropriate solutions based on mission, security, scalability, cost, and performance requirements.
• Architect secure AI solutions across AWS, Azure, and/or other approved Federal cloud environments.
• Define approaches for model selection, model hosting, prompt engineering, embeddings, vector databases, grounding, orchestration, evaluation, and monitoring.
• Develop strategies for enterprise AI agents and multi-agent systems that securely integrate with organizational applications, data, APIs, and workflows.
• Partner with data engineering and analytics teams to ensure AI solutions have access to trusted, governed, and high-quality enterprise data.
• Establish AI governance practices addressing security, privacy, explainability, transparency, model risk, bias, data protection, human oversight, and responsible AI, consistent with FDA-specific data sensitivity and quality-system expectations.
• Ensure AI architectures comply with applicable Federal security, privacy, accessibility, records management, and responsible AI requirements, including FedRAMP authorization and Authority to Operate (ATO) processes required for production deployment on FDA systems.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity teams to address AI-specific risks including prompt injection, data leakage, model manipulation, access control, and adversarial threats.
• Define AI solution evaluation frameworks including accuracy, relevance, hallucination reduction, performance, scalability, security, and mission effectiveness.
• Provide architectural guidance throughout the full solution lifecycle, from discovery and design through implementation, testing, deployment, and optimization.
• Work closely with Enterprise Architects, Chief Architects, Solution Architects, Product Owners, engineers, data scientists, and program leadership.
• Facilitate architecture workshops, AI discovery sessions, technical reviews, and executive-level discussions, including briefings with senior agency executives.
• Translate complex AI concepts into practical recommendations for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Support proposal development, solutioning, technical demonstrations, white papers, and other business development activities related to AI and emerging technologies, serving as a primary technical voice in FDA capture efforts and industry engagements.
• Monitor developments across the AI ecosystem and recommend emerging technologies that may provide meaningful customer or mission value.
• Mentor technical teams and help strengthen AI engineering and architecture capabilities across the organization, with direct responsibility for guiding and setting technical direction for the AI and technical architects supporting the SIRCE and SCAIL programs.
• Maintain a regular on-site presence at FDA facilities to support relationship-building, delivery oversight, and rapid response to account needs.
• Apply working knowledge of FDA's regulatory mission to ensure AI solutions are grounded in the agency's public health mandate.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, solution architecture, enterprise architecture, cloud architecture, data, or related technology disciplines.
• Significant hands-on or architecture-level experience with Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, Generative AI, or advanced analytics, including at least one major AI solution taken through to production deployment within a Federal agency.
• Demonstrated experience designing enterprise AI solutions using LLMs, RAG architectures, AI agents, APIs, vector databases, and cloud AI services.
• Strong understanding of AI architecture, software architecture, data architecture, cloud computing, API integration, and cybersecurity.
• Experience with AWS and/or Microsoft Azure AI and cloud services.
• Experience translating organizational objectives into technical strategies and enterprise architecture.
• Strong executive communication, presentation, facilitation, and technical storytelling skills, with demonstrated success engaging C-suite, CIO, and senior government executive stakeholders.
• Experience leading architecture discussions involving multiple technical disciplines and stakeholder groups.
• Demonstrated experience directly supporting Federal business development across proposals, capture, oral presentations, or client relationship management in partnership with BD/capture teams.
• Proven ability to mentor and set technical direction for a team of AI or technical architects.
• Willingness and ability to maintain a regular on-site presence at FDA facilities in the Washington, DC metro area (e.g., FDA's White Oak, MD campus), with travel as needed.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Federal Public Trust or other required government clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting Federal Government or highly regulated environments, particularly FDA, HHS, or other public-health regulatory missions.
• Experience with AWS Bedrock, Amazon SageMaker, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Databricks, Snowflake, or comparable AI/data platforms.
• Experience with LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, LlamaIndex, or similar AI orchestration frameworks.
• Familiarity with MLOps, LLMOps, DevSecOps, CI/CD, containerization, Kubernetes, infrastructure as code, and automated AI evaluation.
• Knowledge of NIST AI Risk Management Framework, Federal AI governance requirements, and responsible AI practices.
• Experience establishing AI Centers of Excellence, governance boards, architecture standards, or reusable enterprise AI platforms.
• Cloud, architecture, security, data, or AI-related professional certifications.
• Prior experience supporting HHS, FDA, DHS, CMS, HRSA, or other Federal civilian agencies is a plus.
• Recognized industry visibility as an AI thought leader — e.g., speaking engagements, published articles, or industry award recognition.
• Experience navigating FedRAMP authorization and Authority to Operate (ATO) processes for AI systems deployed in production Federal environments.

Educational Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Operations Management, or related field. 

Clearance: Eligible to obtain a public trust clearance.

Location: Hybrid (2 days per week or as needed in the REI Sterling Office)

Washington, DC Metro Area — regular on-site presence at FDA facilities required, in support of account leadership and delivery oversight.

EEO Statement: REI Systems is an Equal Opportunity Employer. In our workplace, we seek, we welcome, and respect diversity in all of its forms.

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