Senior Lead System Architect

Lumen is the trusted network for the AI‑powered world, connecting people, data, and applications through our expansive fiber network and connected ecosystem. We enable secure, high‑performance connectivity across cloud, edge, and AI workloads for enterprises, governments, and communities.

At Lumen, you'll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what's next, where performance, security, and resilience matter.

This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you're ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI‑ready connectivity, join us today.

** The Role*
* At Lumen, we are igniting business growth by connecting people, data, and applications quickly, securely, and effortlessly. As a Senior Lead System Architect, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our AI ecosystem by defining and leading the architecture behind conversational, generative, and agentic AI solutions that deliver real business impact.

This is a strategic technical leadership position for an architect who thrives on solving complex, ambiguous challenges and translating business needs into scalable, production-ready AI platforms. You will establish architectural direction, influence enterprise AI strategy, and collaborate across engineering, product, and business teams to deliver innovative solutions that help our customers and employees achieve more. As a trusted technical leader, you will guide critical technology decisions, champion responsible AI practices, and help drive Lumen's next generation of intelligent experiences.

** Location*
* This is a remote opportunity open to candidates located anywhere in the U.S.

** The Main Responsibilities*
* + Define and own end-to-end architecture for conversational, generative, and agentic AI solutions, including data, application, integration, and cloud platform designs.

+ Establish architecture standards, reference designs, and governance practices to ensure scalability, security, reliability, and operational excellence.

+ Lead technical strategy and platform decisions across Google Cloud AI services and emerging AI technologies, helping shape Lumen's AI roadmap.

+ Design and validate innovative AI approaches, including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), multi-agent systems, vector search, and intelligent orchestration frameworks.

+ Architect secure integrations with enterprise applications, APIs, data platforms, and business systems to enable seamless AI capabilities.

+ Drive operational architecture for AI solutions, including CI/CD, monitoring, observability, model lifecycle management, and reliability engineering.

+ Partner with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to align technical solutions with strategic objectives and customer needs.

+ Serve as a technical mentor and thought leader, elevating architectural maturity and fostering innovation across teams.

+ Champion responsible AI principles by embedding governance, privacy, security, transparency, and ethical practices into solution design.

** What We Look For in a Candidate*
* + Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical discipline.

+ 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 5+ years designing and deploying AI/ML solutions and 3+ years in systems, solution, or enterprise architecture roles.

+ Proven success architecting and delivering large-scale AI solutions from concept through production, particularly for complex or novel business challenges.

+ Deep expertise with Google Cloud AI technologies, including Vertex AI, Dialogflow, Agent Builder, Conversational Agents, and related AI services.

+ Strong understanding of distributed systems, enterprise integration patterns, APIs, event-driven architectures, security, and cloud-native design principles.

+ Hands-on experience with agentic AI, LLM applications, RAG architectures, multi-agent frameworks, model evaluation, vector search, and AI orchestration technologies.

+…