First Citizens Bank · 19 hours ago
Principal AI Architect
Raleigh, NC
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/Staff
10+ years expFirst Citizens Bank is seeking a Principal AI Architect to lead the enterprise-wide AI, GenAI, and MLOps architecture. This role is responsible for defining architectural standards, guiding teams in AI solution delivery, and ensuring compliance with governance and security standards.
BankingInsuranceLendingPaymentsWealth Management
Responsibilities
Define and own enterprise AI and GenAI reference architectures, including LLM platforms, RAG patterns, agentic systems, and multimodal solutions
Establish standardized architectural patterns for model serving, prompt management, orchestration, tool use, and agent frameworks
Lead architecture decisions for buy vs. build, model selection, hosting strategies, and vendor integrations
Ensure AI architectures align with enterprise standards, cloud strategy, security, and governance
Prototype and operationalize advanced AI solutions, including GenAI and LLM-based systems
Architect end-to-end MLOps capabilities, including model lifecycle management, CI/CD for ML, feature stores, model monitoring, and drift detection
Define enterprise patterns for training, fine-tuning, deployment, and observability of ML and GenAI workloads
Guide teams on productionizing PoCs into scalable, resilient, and supportable AI systems
Partner with platform teams to evolve a shared enterprise AI platform
Design AI and GenAI solutions using AWS-native services, including (but not limited to): Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, DynamoDB, Aurora, OpenSearch, IAM, KMS, VPC, CloudWatch
Define cost, performance, and scalability guardrails for AI workloads on AWS
Ensure architectures follow Well-Architected Framework principles
Partner with security, legal, and compliance teams to define AI governance, guardrails, and controls
Embed responsible AI principles, data privacy, and explainability into enterprise designs
Establish standards for model access, auditability, and risk management
Act as a principal-level advisor to senior technology and business leaders
Champion hands-on experimentation and rapid solution delivery while maintaining technical excellence
Mentor architects and senior engineers on AI architecture and MLOps best practices
Drive alignment across teams by publishing reference architectures, design standards, and decision frameworks
Represent the organization in architecture forums, reviews, and strategic initiatives
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
10+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, data platforms, or distributed systems
Deep expertise in AI/ML architecture, including GenAI and LLM-based systems
Strong experience designing MLOps platforms and enterprise AI foundations
Proven experience architecting solutions on AWS
Strong understanding of cloud security, networking, and governance
Proficiency in Python, SQL, and modern data frameworks (e.g., Databricks, Airflow, Snowflake, Vertex AI)
Preferred
Experience with agentic AI design patterns, including tool-use orchestration, autonomous workflow agents, or AI copilots
Proficiency in API design, microservices, and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
Demonstrated ability to rapidly prototype new AI concepts and transition successful PoCs into production-grade systems
Benefits
Benefits are an integral part of total rewards and First Citizens Bank is committed to providing a competitive, thoughtfully designed and quality benefits program to meet the needs of our associates.
Company
First Citizens Bank
First Citizens Bank provides banking services, essential business and professional services, wealth management capabilities, and more.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
First Citizens Bank has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (126)
2024 (115)
2023 (249)
2022 (53)
2021 (12)
2020 (9)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$33M2021-05-07Post Ipo Debt· $10M
2018-08-29Post Ipo Debt· $23M
1986-10-31IPO
Leadership Team
C
Craig Nix
Chief Financial Officer
Samantha Bureau - Johnson
SVP & Director, Customer Contact Center
Recent News
2026-01-06
2025-12-22
Company data provided by crunchbase