Principal Architect AI Platform

About the role

BMO is establishing a dedicated AI Engineering function, and this role is its singular architectural authority. We are seeking a deeply experienced architect to own architectural coherence for AI across BMO's cloud and workspace estates — spanning AWS, Azure, Microsoft 365, and SaaS AI surfaces, and two regulatory regimes (OSFI, OCC).

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the target AI architecture for the enterprise: reference architectures, architectural standards, and the guardrails that governed platform capabilities and domain workloads must conform to.
• Set architectural direction across the function's Directors and squads (Platform & Fabrics, Developer Experience) and across sibling disciplines (Security, DevOps, Data Engineering), resolving competing approaches into a coherent whole.
• Provide architectural governance for major AI initiatives: reviewing designs for coherence, scalability, security, cost, residency, Responsible AI, and regulatory fit and represent them at Architecture Review Board.
• Own the architectural coherence of BMO's Microsoft AI surface (Copilot, Copilot Studio, Fabric Copilot, Microsoft Agent 365) across the two operating organizations, including the Three-Zone citizen governance framework and federation with the AI Registry.
• Lead assessment of emerging AI capabilities, foundation models, and architectural approaches; translating rapid market change into deliberate, defensible architectural positions for the bank.
• Partner with AI Platform & Fabrics to ensure platform capabilities (Gateway, Policy Engine, Identity Fabric, Registry, Guardrails, Observability) realize the target architecture, and with AI Developer Experience / Domain Solution Architects to ensure domain patterns conform to it.
• Provide architectural mentorship and technical leadership to architects and principal engineers across the function, growing architectural capability and consistency.
• Establish and steward the transition architecture for AI-incubated, bank-wide-eligible platforms (Identity Fabric, Policy Engine) as they mature toward enterprise ownership.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline (Master's preferred).
• 10+ years in software engineering, solution architecture, and enterprise architecture, with substantial time at a principal/senior architect level setting direction across multiple teams.
• 3+ years focused on AI/ML and GenAI architecture, including hands-on exposure to production GenAI systems (RAG, agentic workflows, model serving, guardrails).
• Demonstrated experience holding cross-team or cross-organizational architectural authority — setting standards others must follow, and aligning senior stakeholders without direct reporting lines.
• Experience architecting AI in a regulated industry (financial services strongly preferred), with a working understanding of model-risk management and regulatory expectations (OSFI, OCC, or equivalent).

Skills

• Architectural Authority & Leadership: Proven ability to establish architectural coherence across multiple teams and organizations: defining target-state architecture, standards, and governance that hold under contested decisions.
• Executive Presence & Influence: The credibility to advise Directors and senior executives, the judgment to make defensible decisions under ambiguity, and the diplomacy to align organizations with different mandates.
• Mentoring & Technical Leadership: Skilled at chairing/supporting governance forums, preparing decisions for ratification, and managing structured escalation.
• AI & Platform Architecture: Deep understanding of AI/ML and GenAI solution architecture: RAG, agentic frameworks, prompt patterns, fine-tuning, foundation models, embeddings, and vector stores.
• Multi-cloud Architecture: Strong grasp of AI platform architecture: AI gateways, policy-as-code/authorization (Cedar, OPA), workload identity and zero-trust (SPIFFE/SPIRE, federated identity), guardrails, and AI observability.
• Integration Architecture: Integration architecture connecting AI to enterprise systems via APIs, event-driven patterns, and data services.
• Working Knowledge of MLOps/LLMOps: Working knowledge of MLOps/LLMOps, CI/CD, and how architectural decisions translate into deployable, operable patterns.
• Hands-on Fluency: Sufficient hands-on fluency (Python preferred) to prototype, evaluate approaches, and earn engineering credibility.
• Governance & Responsible AI: Deep grounding in Responsible AI, AI/data governance, privacy, and evaluation/guardrail design.
• Regulatory & Model-Risk Evidence: Experience embedding regulatory and model-risk evidence requirements into architecture, produced at runtime rather than retroactively.

Benefits

BMO offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance, tuition reimbursement, accident and life insurance, and retirement savings plans. For more information, please visit: https://jobs.bmo.com/us/en/Total-Rewards

Pay

$112,200.00 - $209,000.00

Schedule

N/A

Equal Opportunity Employer

BMO is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please send an e-mail to BMOCareers.Support@bmo.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.