This role offers a unique opportunity to lead advanced machine learning research while shaping the product and platform roadmap for AI-driven solutions. You will operate at the intersection of research, product, and customer engagement, translating state-of-the-art ML innovations into actionable platform capabilities, reference architectures, and evaluation standards. The position requires a combination of deep technical expertise, strategic vision, and the ability to influence both technical teams and executive stakeholders. You will collaborate cross-functionally to ensure platform offerings meet real-world ML workloads and customer needs while establishing credibility within the broader ML ecosystem. This role also involves external engagement with academic partners and research labs to drive innovation and maintain a cutting-edge perspective. A successful candidate thrives in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment, with a strong focus on measurable impact and responsible ML practices. Lead forward-looking machine learning research to influence the platform and product roadmap, converting novel insights into actionable requirements and priorities. Translate ML pipeline advancements—including training, inference, fine-tuning, evaluation, and data workflows—into practical reference architectures and benchmarks. Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, and ML teams to align platform capabilities with emerging workloads and best practices. Establish technical standards for ML-enabled services, ensuring evaluation rigor, reproducibility, reliability, and responsible AI practices. Engage strategic customers and external partners to convert complex ML use cases into clear functional and non-functional requirements. Provide senior technical guidance during architecture reviews, escalations, and design evaluations, ensuring customer realities inform platform decisions. Build strategic collaborations with universities, research labs, and the broader ML ecosystem to accelerate innovation and maintain technical credibility.

The Optum AI Sr Director, Client Scientific Solutions provides leadership for the development and deployment of applied AI/ML research and production initiatives at healthcare clients. This role leads applied research teams in developing and operationalizing advanced AI models, ensuring scalability and reliability. The Sr Director drives innovation, sets technical standards, and fosters collaboration across product and engineering teams to deliver measurable business impact. Applied Research to Production: Lead applied research teams in transitioning AI models from concept to production, ensuring scalability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Oversee integration of research outputs into client production environments with solid governance and performance standards. Collaboration: Partner with product and engineering leaders to translate business needs into technical solutions and foster cross-functional alignment. Innovation Leadership: Drive adoption of advanced AI technologies and methodologies at clients to deliver innovative solutions aligned with organizational priorities. Responsible AI: Implement governance and standards for ethical AI practices, ensuring compliance and transparency in model development and deployment. Ecosystem Development: Establish frameworks and best practices for model lifecycle management, monitoring, and continuous improvement. Talent Strategy: Mentor, develop and train senior technical leaders and build a solid pipeline of AI talent through coaching and development initiatives.

• Architect and deliver end‑to‑end AI/ML solutions on Google Cloud using Vertex AI (Workbench, Pipelines, Training, Model Registry, Online/Batch Prediction, Feature Store, Model Monitoring) and Gemini/LLM services—optimized for performance, cost, and maintainability. • Develop production data pipelines with BigQuery, Dataflow, and Dataproc; integrate streaming via Pub/Sub; containerize and orchestrate with Cloud Run and GKE; automate CI/CD with Cloud Build and IaC. • Implement robust MLOps (experiment tracking, evaluation, bias/robustness testing, model versioning, canary/blue‑green rollouts, automated retraining, drift detection, and lineage). • Apply secure‑by‑design patterns—VPC‑SC, private service access, CMEK, fine‑grained IAM, artifact signing, and secrets management—aligned to NIST 800‑53, RMF, and FedRAMP baselines. • Operationalize LLM/GenAI (RAG, tool‑use/agents, safety filters, evaluation harnesses) including retrieval over structured/unstructured data; leverage DoD‑approved AI toolchains where appropriate. • Partner with mission stakeholders to elicit requirements, frame measurable success criteria, and deliver iterative value; provide technical mentorship and lead design/code reviews for engineering teams. • Contribute to program roadmaps (including use cases), documenting architectures, controls, and SOPs for sustained operations.

Job Title: AI Solution Architect Work Location: Fully remote position Employment Type: Full-time Employment Status: Exempt, salaried Visa sponsorship is not available for this position. Must reside in the United States. We are not accepting applicants for remote workers in California, Illinois, and New York at this time. Defines solution architectures for artificial intelligence systems, including data pipelines, feature stores, vector indices, model endpoints, orchestration, and serving layers Designs LLM -centric patterns (prompting, functional tool calling, memory, grounding, guardrails) and retrieval augmented generation workflows with appropriate evaluation strategies. Engineers’ agentic archit ectures and multi agent handoffs, specific toolkits, planning/ execution loops and safety boundaries for autonomous or semi-autonomous tasks. Selects and integrates cloud services for training, tuning and inference. Integrates AI services with enterprise platforms, and designs adapters, webhooks, and contract test for reliability. Leads proof of concept pilots , validates feasibility, scales succe ssful patterns, and hardens prototypes into production ready services. Defines reference architectures, templates, Software Development Kits and reusable components. Accelerates delivery across multiple product teams and business units. Partners with security to model threats and mitigate risks (prompt injection, data exfiltration, model poisoning, adversarial inputs ). Establishes human workflows for review, override, and continuous improvement. Coaches engineers and data scientists on AI architecture patterns, evaluation methods and deployment practices. Prepares executive ready ar tifacts, communicates tradeoffs , risks, cost models, and ROI, ties technical decisions to outcome based KPIs. Ensures accessibility, localization, and inclusive design considerations for conversational and generative experiences. 5+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, AI/ML engineering, solution architecture or related roles, with at leas t 3-5 years focus ed on enterprise scale AI/ML or generative AI initiatives Proven t rack record designing and delivering end to end AI architecture in medium sized organizations, including reference blueprints, integration patter n s , scalable deployment models, governance frameworks, and migration roadmaps to product AI systems. Deep expertise in modern generative AI and LLMs, including RAG architectures, fine-tuning/PEFT, agentic workflows, prompt engineering, inference optimization, evaluation techniques, and LLMOps / MLOps best practices. 5+ years of h ands-on proficiency with Databricks platform (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog for governance, Mosaic AI/Databricks AI/ BMLflow for ML/GenAI pipelines, Spark for distributed processing) and data lake/ lakehouse architectures for handling structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data at enterprise scale. Strong experience building and optimizing data pipelines , vector search/embeddings, ETL/ELT processes, and data governance in lakehouse environments to support reliable AI training and inference. Advanced programming skills in Python (primary), with working knowledge of SQL, Scala, and modern AI development tools such as Cursor, Claude, Devin AI , Jupyter / Databricks notebooks, and Git for collaborative workflows. Solid understanding of cloud platforms ( Azure preferred), containerization ( Docker/Kubernetes ), CI/CD pipelines, GPU/accelerator optimization, and cost-efficient scalable AI infrastructure. Experience with AI governance, security, compliance (data privacy, ethical AI, model monitoring/observability), risk assessment, and alignment of AI solutions with enterprise standards and regulations. Experience leading cross-functional teams (data scientists, engineers, product, compliance) in PoCs , technology evaluations, AI adoption programs, and stakeholder presentations to executive audiences. Familiarity with emerging AI trends, hybrid/multi-cloud setups, and tools for rapid prototyping/iteration in enterprise settings. Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science , Data Science, AI, or a related quantitative field Strong communication and strategic skills to translate complex technical architectures into business value for C-level stakeholders. Successfully pass background check for cybersecurity site access. Architects AI solutions from discovery through production that result in mea surable business value. Translates business problems into reference architectures spanning data ingestion, model development and selection, machine learning operations, security and governance, and system integration Designs patterns for LLM/RAG/agentic workflows, event driven and real time use cases and multimodal experiences. Handles build vs buy anal yses, vendor and platform evaluations, and proof of concepts; confirms observability for safety, reliability, d rift, basis and performance. Partners with product, data science, engineering, cloud, security and domain stakeholders to deliver solutions that improve outcomes, efficiency and user experience across enterprise functions. Candidate will be responsible for reviewing policies and procedures related to cybersecurity and those relevant to the functions of their role. Candidate is expected to maintain a cybersecure work environment. Must be able to sit and stand for extended periods of time. Must be able to use hands to type, handle products, tools and navigate a computer keyboard. Must be able to view computer screen for extended periods of time. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and distance vision. Medical, Vision, Dental Insurance H Health Savings Account with Employer contributions 401(k) with Employer match Short-term & Long-term Disability Coverage Accidental Death & Dismemberment Coverage Life Insurance Coverage 80 hours of Paid-Time-Off annually Eight paid holidays per year All other benefits required by applicable law Alignment with Corporate Values All Cutsforth employees are expected to perform their work in a manner that exhibits understanding and adherence to the Company Mission and Core Attributes of Cutsforth Employees. Employees in management roles must exhibit continual improvement along Cutsforth’s Leadership Traits. Further, each employee must read and adhere to corporate policies and safety protocols. Learn more about Cutsforth here: Cutsforth.com/About Read our Mission & Values here: Cutsforth.com/Values Equal Employment Opportunity Statement: Cutsforth will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Cutsforth will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Such action shall include, but not be limited to the following: Employment, upgrading, demotion, or transfer, recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship. Cutsforth agrees to post in conspicuous places, available to employees and applicants for employment, notices to be provided by the provisions of this nondiscrimination clause. For Cutsforth's full Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, click here: EEO Notice to Employees & Applicants