Senior Engineering Architect

Senior Engineering Architect

Location: U.S - Remote

Work Authorization: U.S. citizenship required

Clearance: An active clearance is not required at the time of hire. Candidates must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance, which includes a federal background investigation.

Salary Range: $145,000–$250,000 USD, dependent on experience level and location

About the Role

We’re seeking a Senior Engineering Architect to own the end-to-end technical design of a secure AI test and evaluation platform supporting Government teams responsible for assessing AI systems before fielding.

The program spans shared evaluation interfaces, dataset and model tooling, ML infrastructure, web services, and the packaging and delivery systems used to deploy capabilities into secure Government environments. This role ensures those components form a coherent, scalable, secure, and interoperable technical solution.

You’ll establish architecture standards, make build-versus-buy-versus-adopt decisions across the open-source landscape, resolve cross-cutting technical decisions, and guide the solution from initial concept through deployment and sustainment. You’ll also serve as a senior technical advisor to Government stakeholders and internal engineering teams.

This is a fully remote, U.S.-based role working with a distributed team that relies heavily on asynchronous communication.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the end-to-end system architecture, technical roadmap, and architectural principles for complex open-source AI solutions
• Develop and maintain interface specifications that ensure interoperability across platform services, evaluation tools, infrastructure, and external systems
• Evaluate open-source and commercial technologies and document the technical, operational, security, and sustainability tradeoffs behind adoption decisions
• Make and communicate build-versus-buy-versus-adopt recommendations
• Ensure system designs account for Government hosting, identity, security, accreditation, and interoperability requirements from the beginning
• Review engineering designs across teams and resolve cross-cutting architectural decisions
• Establish architecture standards, reusable patterns, technical guardrails, and design-review practices
• Represent the technical solution during Government design reviews, program milestones, and stakeholder discussions
• Translate mission, program, and security requirements into actionable technical direction for engineering teams
• Provide expert guidance on open-source AI frameworks and platforms such as PyTorch, JAX, Ray, Kubeflow, MCP, and open-weight large language models
• Identify, document, and mitigate technical risks throughout the project lifecycle
• Support proposal and delivery activities through architecture documentation, technical estimates, implementation plans, and statements of work
• Partner with infrastructure, platform, ML, data, security, and application engineers to ensure consistent implementation of the target architecture
• Guide the technical solution through deployment, operational validation, and sustainment
• Mentor engineers and technical leads while fostering clear technical decision-making across the program

Required Skills & Experience

• U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• 3+ years of demonstrated ownership of system or solution architecture
• Experience owning the design of distributed, cloud-native systems operating in production
• Broad technical experience across package management, CI/CD, ML infrastructure, data platforms, and web services
• Deep expertise in at least one of the following areas, with working knowledge across several: numerical computing, distributed or high-performance computing, cloud infrastructure, data science and machine learning, MLOps, data engineering, generative AI, or agentic AI
• Proficiency in Python and a strong understanding of software engineering principles, system design, and design patterns
• Experience defining system interfaces, integration patterns, architecture standards, and technical roadmaps
• Experience evaluating open-source and commercial technologies and documenting architectural tradeoffs
• Ability to identify and manage cross-cutting concerns involving security, scalability, reliability, interoperability, and maintainability
• Experience guiding technical work across multiple engineering teams or disciplines
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with technical and nontechnical audiences
• Ability to explain complex technical decisions, risks, and tradeoffs to customers, executives, and engineering teams
• Ability to work independently and collaborate effectively within a remote, distributed team

Nice to Have

• • Prior architecture experience supporting Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, or other federal programs
  • Familiarity with the DoD Enterprise DevSecOps Reference Design, Platform One, or comparable Government platform patterns
  • Experience designing systems for air-gapped, disconnected, or highly restricted environments
  • Experience designing AI/ML test and evaluation platforms or related model, dataset, and evaluation tooling
  • Experience with security authorization processes, Risk Management Framework requirements, or systems operating within accreditation boundaries
  • Active participation in open-source communities through maintainership, code contributions, technical writing, conference presentations, or community organizing
  • Experience within the Scientific Python or PyData ecosystem
  • Experience in a consulting, customer-facing, or technical advisory role
  • Active or previously held U.S. security clearance

What We Offer

• Medical, Dental & Vision – 100% paid for employees, 75% for dependents
• 401(k) Match – Up to 5% with full vesting after 2 years
• Unlimited PTO – With a required minimum of 15 days off annually
• Fully Remote Setup – Includes up to $3,000 equipment reimbursement
• Continuous Education – Includes up to $500 reimbursement
• Disability & Life Insurance – 100% employer-paid
• HSA & FSA Options – With monthly HSA contributions from OpenTeams