AI Architect

About the role

The IT capability at Koch Engineered Solutions (KES) is a critical component of our strategy to enhance business performance through the application of technology and to transform our business profitably. Our team operates with a startup mentality, integrating closely with Engineering, Operations, Commercial, and Finance teams to design, build, and scale innovative solutions that transform KES work processes.

Responsibilities

• Partner with Product and business teams to identify high-value AI and Generative AI use cases, then lead the technical solutioning process to build the detailed architecture for how AI will solve the problem.
• Leverage expertise across multiple technical domains as part of the solutioning process (Machine Learning, GenAI/LLMs, Data Engineering, Security, Cloud Infrastructure, Application Integration, etc.).
• Experimentation - Identify, prototype, and evaluate emerging AI models, agentic frameworks, and tooling to solve problems new to the organization.
• Execute on initiatives as appropriate.

Requirements

• Experience designing and deploying AI/ML and Generative AI solutions on modern cloud platforms (Azure AI / Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock/SageMaker, Claude Code / Claude Cowork, or comparable).
• Proven experience communicating AI and technology concepts in both execution detail and broad terms to a variety of technical and business audiences.
• Demonstrated capability partnering with customers to understand business and operating models and translate them into AI-enabled solution proposals.

Qualifications

• 5+ years’ experience in Information Technology, including hands-on delivery of data, analytics, or AI/ML solutions.
• Experience supporting discrete engineering & manufacturing.
• Experience designing and deploying agentic AI – conversational and action-oriented AI agent platforms – to solve business problems.
• Deep understanding of Generative AI and large language model architecture (transformer models, fine-tuning, RAG, embeddings, and prompt/context engineering).
• Experience operationalizing AI – LLMOps/MLOps practices for model deployment, evaluation, prompt and version management, monitoring, and drift detection.
• Experience with vector databases and retrieval systems (e.g., Azure AI Search, pgvector, Pinecone).
• Experience with AI orchestration and agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, or similar).
• Familiarity with Responsible AI and AI governance – safety, guardrails, bias mitigation, data privacy, and emerging regulatory requirements.
• Technical experience with serverless and event-driven cloud services, microservices, and containers (e.g., Lambda/Azure Functions, SQS/SNS, EventBridge, API Gateway, Docker, Kubernetes, AKS/ECS).
• Experience with DevOps and MLOps methodologies and tools (CI/CD, GitHub, Azure DevOps).

Skills

• Experience in supporting discrete engineering & manufacturing.
• Experience designing and deploying agentic AI – conversational and action-oriented AI agent platforms – to solve business problems.
• Deep understanding of Generative AI and large language model architecture (transformer models, fine-tuning, RAG, embeddings, and prompt/context engineering).
• Experience operationalizing AI – LLMOps/MLOps practices for model deployment, evaluation, prompt and version management, monitoring, and drift detection.
• Experience with vector databases and retrieval systems (e.g., Azure AI Search, pgvector, Pinecone).
• Experience with AI orchestration and agent frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, or similar).
• Familiarity with Responsible AI and AI governance – safety, guardrails, bias mitigation, data privacy, and emerging regulatory requirements.
• Technical experience with serverless and event-driven cloud services, microservices, and containers (e.g., Lambda/Azure Functions, SQS/SNS, EventBridge, API Gateway, Docker, Kubernetes, AKS/ECS).
• Experience with DevOps and MLOps methodologies and tools (CI/CD, GitHub, Azure DevOps).

Benefits

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts
• Life Insurance
• AD&D
• Disability
• Retail
• ADD
• Retirement
• Paid Vacation/Time Off
• Education Assistance
• May also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave, and adoption assistance.

Pay

Compensation details are confidential and not disclosed in public postings. Please refer to the job description for more information.

Schedule

The position can be located in Houston, TX, Tulsa, OK, or Wichita, KS, with occasional travel required.