Principal Data & AI Architect

About the role

A client of Innova Solutions is immediately hiring for an AI Solutions Architect.

Position type

Contract (6-12 months)

Location

Charlotte, NC

Hybrid Onsite

• 3 days onsite, 2 days remote in a week

Day to Day Responsibilities

• Enterprise Data Architecture
• Lead the design and implementation of a consolidated enterprise data platform that integrates multiple legacy systems into a unified, governed data ecosystem.
• Assess current-state systems, data models, integrations, and business processes to develop target-state architecture.
• Define strategies for master data management (MDM), metadata management, data quality, and data lifecycle governance.
• Establish a scalable architecture supporting structured, semi-structured, and unstructured enterprise data.
• Systems Integration & Modernization
• Architect solutions leveraging APIs, event-driven architectures, data fabrics, data lakes, and modern cloud-native services.
• Define approaches for data harmonization, transformation, deduplication, and lineage tracking.
• Manage technical dependencies and integration risks across multiple business domains.
• Authorized Data Source Strategy
• Establish and maintain a trusted "system of record" and enterprise-wide single source of truth.
• Implement governance frameworks ensuring data consistency, ownership, security, compliance, and auditability.
• Partner with business stakeholders to define authoritative data domains and stewardship models.
• Create enterprise taxonomy and business-aligned data standards.
• Semantic AI & Knowledge Layer Development
• Design and implement a semantic layer that provides business context and meaning across enterprise data assets.
• Develop knowledge graph, ontology, and metadata strategies that support advanced AI and search capabilities.
• Create architectures that enable retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and contextual reasoning.
• Ensure data structures and governance practices support AI-ready enterprise information.
• Agentic AI Architecture
• Define frameworks for deploying AI agents capable of interacting with enterprise systems and workflows.
• Design secure agent orchestration layers leveraging governed enterprise data and business logic.
• Enable conversational interfaces, intelligent automation, task execution, and decision-support capabilities.
• Establish guardrails, monitoring, observability, and governance for autonomous AI operations.
• Leadership & Strategy
• Serve as the technical leader for enterprise modernization initiatives.
• Develop multi-year architecture roadmaps aligned with organizational business objectives.
• Mentor data engineers, architects, AI specialists, and platform teams.
• Present solution designs and recommendations to executive leadership and business stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Data Science, or related field.
• Experience in enterprise data architecture, systems architecture, or digital transformation initiatives.
• Proven experience consolidating complex legacy systems into modern enterprise platforms.
• Strong expertise in:
• Data architecture and modeling
• Enterprise integration architecture
• Cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud)
• Data governance and master data management
• Metadata management and data catalogs
• API and event-driven architectures
• Large-scale data migrations and modernization programs
• Experience designing enterprise semantic layers, knowledge graphs, or ontology-driven architectures.
• Deep understanding of AI, machine learning, large language models (LLMs), and retrieval architectures.
• Experience leading enterprise-wide transformation programs involving multiple stakeholders and business units.