Principal Engineer- AI Platform Architect

When you join Verizon

You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely - even if they're daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love - driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world.

Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together - lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the #VTeamLife.

As the Principal Architect for Verizon's Enterprise AI Platform, you will provide technical leadership for a comprehensive 5-layer architecture serving all global business units. Your primary mandate is to ensure architectural coherence across the ecosystem, aligning Gateway routing with the Registry's RBAC models, integrating the ADLC pipeline with established guardrail frameworks, and providing end-to-end token visibility for Fin Ops. In this capacity, you will author Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), spearhead Architecture Review Board (ARB) submissions, and conduct rigorous build-vs-buy analyses supported by multi-year Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) models.

This principal-level individual contributor role requires the ability to exert technical influence and drive consensus across the organization through design excellence and strategic vision.

• Direct the 5-layer architecture stack
  - Encompassing Model Foundation, Agent Factory, Agent Runtime, Experience, and Control Plane layers. Responsibilities include defining formal layer boundaries, interface contracts, and interaction patterns to ensure platform scalability.
• Establish and govern architectural standards
  - Defining API conventions, enterprise security patterns, and observability requirements. Lead component reviews and provide consultative oversight for Business Unit agent architectures to ensure platform alignment.
• Lead technical strategy and procurement evaluations
  - Executing complex build-vs-buy analyses for platform components and develop comprehensive 3-year TCO models. Formulate multi-cloud strategies balancing central platform services with decentralized requirements.
• Architect enterprise security and governance frameworks
  - Designing multi-stage security flows encompassing identity, authentication, execution safety, and audit. Engineer Responsible AI (RAI) guardrail architectures and ensure compliance with emerging international regulations.
• Stakeholder engagement and pattern evangelization
  - Collaborating with executive leadership and external cloud partners on capacity planning and integration. Contribute high-impact reference architectures to the enterprise library to drive architectural maturity.

What you'll be doing...

Principal-level architect with a demonstrated focus on technical interface contracts and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) modeling. Candidates must possess a proven history of designing scalable distributed platforms and establishing architectural credibility with both executive leadership and engineering teams through rigorous Architecture Decision Records (ADRs). Deep technical proficiency in Large Language Model (LLM) architecture-including attention mechanisms, KV-cache, context windows, and token economics-is required, alongside the ability to substantiate build-vs-buy recommendations with robust, 3-year financial models.

This position demands the agility to navigate rapidly evolving AI technologies and the ability to drive strategic consensus and influence technical direction across the organization.

• Bachelor's…