Lead AI & Data Architect

$175000 - $210000 per year | Orange, CA | Hybrid | Permanent

We are an established, industry-leading organization with a large-scale operational footprint and a continued investment in modernizing our enterprise data platforms, Microsoft ecosystem, and AI capabilities.

We are looking for a highly experienced Lead AI & Data Architect to help shape our next generation of enterprise data and intelligent business solutions. This is a unique hybrid position combining approximately 65% data/platform architecture and 35% hands-on AI engineering.

The ideal candidate brings deep experience with Microsoft Fabric, Azure, enterprise data architecture, and modern AI technologies including RAG, AI agents, Python, and API integrations. We need someone who can architect enterprise-grade solutions and personally build critical components, not someone limited to high-level diagrams or strategy.

• $175–$210K proposed base compensation range
• High-impact technical leadership role shaping enterprise data and AI architecture
• Opportunity to design the Microsoft Fabric/Azure foundation for future AI initiatives
• Build production AI agents, RAG solutions, and intelligent enterprise integrations
• Balance strategic architecture decisions with meaningful hands-on engineering
• Collaborate with existing SQL/data engineering and Power Platform developers
• Influence security, governance, scalability, and long-term technical direction
• Join an established organization investing in data modernization and AI innovation
• Opportunity for the role to evolve toward greater AI engineering ownership over time

Job Details

We are seeking a hands-on Lead AI & Data Architect who can design scalable enterprise data platforms and engineer AI solutions that securely connect to real business systems.

This is not a pure AI research position, a traditional data architect role, or a Power Platform development position. The ideal candidate combines enterprise data architecture expertise with the ability to personally develop AI agents, integrations, and proof-of-value solutions that can evolve into production systems.

• Architect and modernize enterprise data platforms using Microsoft Fabric, Azure, SQL, Lakehouse and data warehouse technologies
• Design dimensional data models, star/snowflake schemas, semantic layers and governed enterprise datasets
• Define scalable data ingestion, transformation, integration and orchestration patterns
• Architect Azure AI Foundry solutions and enterprise AI applications
• Design and implement RAG architectures, vector/search solutions, grounding strategies and enterprise knowledge retrieval
• Develop AI agent and tool-integration architectures, including MCP where appropriate
• Build hands‑on Python services, APIs, agents and integration components
• Establish secure data and AI access patterns using Microsoft Entra, row‑level security, governance and enterprise controls
• Collaborate with existing SQL developers on data engineering and platform implementation
• Partner with the Power Platform developer on Power Apps, Power Automate and Copilot Studio integrations
• Translate business requirements into scalable, production‑ready architecture and AI solutions
• Establish architectural standards and mentor developers while remaining technically hands‑on

• Senior/principal-level experience in enterprise data architecture and engineering
• Strong hands‑on Microsoft Fabric and Azure architecture expertise
• Advanced SQL, dimensional modeling, data warehousing and semantic modeling skills
• Experience with Azure AI Foundry or related Azure AI services
• Practical knowledge of RAG, vector search, grounding and AI agents
• Strong Python…