Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting

We’re hiring a Head of AI Product & Architecture Consulting!

The Ippon story started in 2002 in Paris, France – the founding idea emerged from our founder and CEO Stéphane Nomis’s experience as an international Judo champion, which shaped a culture built on ambition and excellence. The US headquarters sits in Richmond, VA, with offices in New York, Washington DC, and Atlanta. Ippon is a technology consulting firm focused on accelerating clients’ digital roadmaps across Product Management, Cloud, Dev Ops, Data, AI, and Software Engineering.

Our core strengths include deep financial services expertise, technology excellence, and a coaching mindset. We are a Premier Snowflake Partner and an Advanced AWS Partner.

The Practice Head of AI Product & Architecture will lead Ippon’s APA practice, combining deep expertise in software development, product engineering, agile delivery, architecture, and applied AI. The role governs growth of a high‑performing consulting team, shapes methods and offerings, and ensures delivery excellence across complex client engagements. The ideal candidate is a proven leader with consulting instincts and a track record of delivering technology outcomes, grounded in modern engineering practices and hands‑on AI experience in product development, software delivery, customer experience, and enterprise operations.

• Lead and grow the practice across people, offerings, delivery standards, and market positioning.
• Continuously improve consulting methods, delivery playbooks, technical standards, and ways of working in collaboration with Customer Success and Senior Leadership.
• Build a strong team culture grounded in software craft, product thinking, architectural discipline, and practical AI adoption, emphasizing psychological safety, accountability, and measurable improvement.
• Recruit, develop, coach, and retain high‑performing consultants, engineers, architects, product leaders, and delivery practitioners.

• Provide senior oversight across client engagements involving software development, product engineering, AI‑enabled delivery, modernization, and architecture.
• Ensure solutions are maintainable, secure, scalable, and aligned to client outcomes, promoting modern practices such as continuous delivery, test automation, observability, and platform thinking.
• Use metrics such as DORA, flow metrics, and business outcome measures to drive evidence‑based improvement.
• Help clients adopt flexible, sustainable delivery models that balance speed, governance, quality, and business value – coaching cross‑functional teams on effective collaboration across product, engineering, architecture, security, and compliance.

• In collaboration with the CTO, shape APA’s approach to applied AI across product engineering, software development, architecture, and delivery transformation.
• Help clients identify and pursue practical AI use cases that improve delivery speed, product quality, customer experience, or operational efficiency.
• Guide teams in the responsible use of AI‑assisted development tools, agentic workflows, and intelligent applications, with clear understanding of associated risks including governance, security, privacy, and regulatory considerations.
• Partner with Ippon’s data and cloud leaders to connect APA’s AI capabilities with strengths in AWS, Snowflake, and data architecture.

• Support sales pursuits, proposals, and executive conversations – translating ambiguous client needs into clear engagement strategies, delivery plans, and measurable outcomes.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior client stakeholders at the intersection of product, engineering, architecture, data, cloud, AI, and governance.
• Define and package APA offerings across AI‑enabled product engineering, software modernization, delivery effectiveness, and engineering excellence.
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