Senior AI Platform Architect

Sumitomo Pharma Co., Ltd., is a global pharmaceutical company based in Japan with operations in the U.S. (Sumitomo Pharma America, Inc.). We focus on patient needs in oncology, urology, women’s health, rare diseases, cell & gene therapies and CNS, aiming to accelerate discovery, research, and development to bring novel therapies to patients sooner.

The Senior AI Platform Architect is a senior individual contributor responsible for partnering with business and technology stakeholders to identify, define, and prioritize AI opportunities, then architect and deliver working implementations in a secure, reliable, and compliant manner. This role designs and evolves the enterprise AI platform and delivery patterns spanning traditional ML and modern LLM-based solutions, enabling teams to move from use case to production through reusable components, MLOps/LLMOps practices, and automation.

The ideal candidate has strong hands‑on engineering skills (Python, Terraform), deep knowledge of AI/ML/LLMs, and a track record of translating business problems into measurable use cases and production‑ready systems.

• Lead end‑to‑end AI use case delivery: facilitate discovery with business partners, define problem statements, success metrics, data needs, constraints, and deliver working prototypes that mature into production implementations.
• Architect and evolve an enterprise AI/ML/LLM platform including reference architectures, reusable patterns, and paved roads for model training, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring (MLOps/LLMOps).
• Design and implement LLM solutions such as RAG, tool/function calling, prompt management, agent workflows, and safety guardrails; select appropriate models and approaches based on use case requirements.
• Define data and integration patterns for AI solutions, including feature access, document ingestion pipelines, vector search, APIs/eventing, and secure connectivity to internal systems.
• Build automation and infrastructure‑as‑code to provision and operate AI workloads using Terraform (e.g., cloud resources, IAM, networking, storage, observability) and Python (services, pipelines, tooling).
• Establish and enforce engineering standards and best practices for AI systems: reproducibility, testing, model evaluation, documentation, cost controls, and operational readiness.
• Partner with security, privacy, and compliance teams to implement governance controls for AI (e.g., access management, data handling, auditability, model risk management, validation requirements).
• Own reliability and performance for AI platform services by designing for resilience and scalability, instrumenting telemetry, and driving incident response and root cause remediation.
• Enable and guide application and data teams through design reviews, hands‑on pairing, internal documentation, and reference implementations.
• Communicate architecture decisions and tradeoffs clearly to technical and non‑technical stakeholders; manage competing priorities to deliver outcomes aligned with business value.

• Build relationships and rapport with key internal and customer contacts.
• Customer service mindset.
• Attentive problem solver.
• Ability to clearly present complete problem details and propose recommended solutions to management.
• Understanding of the importance of and compliance to Security and Compliance in IT environments.

• BS in Information Technology or related field.
• 8+ years of experience designing and delivering cloud platforms and/or production software, including 3+ years building or operating AI/ML solutions (traditional ML and/or LLM‑based systems) in a regulated environment.
• Experience working with multi‑tiered ticket handling/resolution systems.
• Strongly motivated, well‑organized, and shows professional initiative.
• Takes ownership of assignments, can work both independently and as part of the team.
• Ability to work in a fast‑paced and challenging environment.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously.
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to work responsibly with minimal supervision and with a sense of…