VP of Solutions Architect - AI

Robots & Pencils is seeking a seasoned AWS AI Solutions Architect to lead the design and delivery of complex, enterprise-grade generative and agentic AI systems built on Amazon Web Services. You will architect scalable, secure, and production-ready AI platforms leveraging Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, AWS Strands Agents, AWS AgentCore Gateway, Nova Forge, Nova 2 Sonic, and related AWS AI/ML services. As an AWS AI Solutions Architect, you will serve as a strategic technical advisor-translating ambiguity into structured AWS-native architectures, validating designs through hands-on prototyping, and ensuring every solution aligns with the AWS Well-Architected Framework (including ML Lens) while delivering measurable business value. Key Responsibilities Client Engagement & AWS Solutions Architecture • Serve as the primary AWS AI architecture partner for strategic clients, driving generative and agentic AI system design from discovery through production. • Lead architecture design using Amazon Bedrock (including foundation models and custom models), Bedrock AgentCore, AWS Strands Agents, and AWS AgentCore Gateway. • Design advanced RAG, Agentic RAG, and multi-agent orchestration architectures leveraging AWS-native services such as Lambda, Step Functions, API Gateway, DynamoDB, Aurora (pgvector), and OpenSearch. • Produce AWS reference architectures, architecture decision records (ADRs), and implementation roadmaps aligned to business objectives. • Validate feasibility through hands-on prototyping in Python using Bedrock SDKs, SageMaker, and serverless services. • Ensure architectures follow AWS security best practices (IAM, KMS, VPC, PrivateLink) and cost optimization principles. Outcome Ownership & Business Impact • Own architectural integrity from concept through production deployment on AWS. • Align solutions with AWS Well-Architected Framework pillars: Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability. • Guide clients through tradeoff decisions across model selection (Bedrock FMs vs custom SageMaker models), latency, cost, governance, and compliance. Accelerate time-to-value through reusable AWS accelerators, Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation/Terraform/CDK), and CI/CD automation. • Continuously evaluate emerging AWS AI capabilities (Nova Forge, Nova 2 Sonic, Bedrock updates, and new AgentCore capabilities). Engineering Leadership & Delivery Excellence • Provide architectural oversight to Forward Deployed Engineers and AWS delivery teams. • Establish best practices for MLOps on AWS including model lifecycle management, monitoring, and observability using SageMaker, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and AWS Config. • Define governance, responsible AI guardrails, Bedrock Guardrails configuration, and security controls for enterprise environments. • Mentor engineers on AWS AI service integration, distributed systems design, and secure multi-account strategies. • Make principled tradeoffs under constraints related to privacy, compliance (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR), cost, and operational complexity. Cross-Functional Collaboration • Partner with internal product, engineering, research, and customer success teams to evolve AWS-based AI offerings. • Contribute AWS reference architectures and reusable infrastructure modules to internal accelerators. • Support pre-sales engagements including architecture workshops, AWS migration strategy, and solution scoping. • Collaborate across distributed teams and client stakeholders across North America. Required Skills & Qualifications • Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience. • 10+ years of experience in software engineering or cloud architecture with deep AWS ownership. • Deep expertise in Amazon Bedrock, Bedrock AgentCore, AWS Strands Agents, AgentCore Gateway, and related AWS AI services. • Strong familiarity with SageMaker (training, deployment, pipelines), deep learning fundamentals, and model fine-tuning strategies. • Experience architecting RAG, multi-agent, and orchestration systems using AWS-native services. • Strong knowledge of distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and serverless patterns. • Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (AWS CDK, CloudFormation, Terraform). • Hands-on development capability in Python and AWS SDKs. • Experience implementing observability and monitoring strategies in AWS environments. • Proven success leading enterprise-scale AWS transformations. • Exceptional communication skills for both technical and executive audiences. • AWS Professional Certifications highly preferred (AWS Solutions Architect - Professional, AWS DevOps Engineer - Professional). Nice to Have • AWS Specialty certifications (Machine Learning - Specialty, Security - Specialty). • Experience with advanced agentic reasoning patterns (ReAct,CoT, Tree-of-Thoughts) implemented on Bedrock. • Experience building secure multi-account A...