Ulta Beauty · 10 hours ago
Principal AI Solution Architect
Bolingbrook, IL
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$143K/yr - $220K/yr
12+ years expUlta Beauty is the largest North American beauty retailer, and they are seeking a Principal AI Solution Architect to lead the strategic oversight and architectural integrity of their Enterprise AI portfolio. This role involves designing and scaling innovative AI solutions to enhance guest experiences while managing a specialized team and coordinating with various IT departments.
BeautyConsumer GoodsCosmeticsRetail
Responsibilities
Portfolio Governance: Oversee the architectural design and delivery of AIML and Agentic solutions across multiple delivery pods, ensuring technical consistency and alignment with business objectives
Team Leadership: Manage and mentor a high-performing team of Solution Architects, Platform Architects, and MLOps Architects, defining their performance standards and professional growth paths. Define and drive Architecture team and tech SME blueprint and resource strategy
Enterprise Coordination: Act as a key liaison to the Enterprise Architecture (EA) team to ensure AI initiatives comply with corporate infrastructure, security, and data governance standards while influencing the evolution of those standards. Define and align on operating model between the two groups
Agentic Framework Design: Lead the design and implementation of agentic workflows and autonomous systems, focusing on multi-agent orchestration, tool-use integration, and robust feedback loops
Architectural Guardrails: Establish and enforce standards for model selection (LLMs vs. SLMs), RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) patterns, and agentic reasoning paths to optimize for cost, latency, and accuracy
Strategic Roadmapping: Define the 12–24 month technical roadmap for the AI delivery organization, identifying emerging technologies and determining when to "build, buy, or partner."
Resource & Capacity Planning: Coordinate with product owners and pod leads to balance architectural resources across priority areas, ensuring high-velocity delivery without accumulating technical debt
Risk Mitigation: Address complex challenges related to AI ethics, bias, hallucination management, and data privacy across all portfolio projects
Stakeholder Influence: Communicate complex architectural trade-offs to executive senior leadership, translating technical milestones into business value and ROI
Mentor: Mentor internal team members and cross functional collaborators team members in the use of AI / ML / NLP methodologies and techniques
Qualification
Required
12+ years of experience in software engineering and systems architecture, with at least 5+ years specifically focused on leading large-scale AIML production environments
Experience managing other architects or technical leads (Data Scientists) and overseeing multiple simultaneous workstreams/pods
Deep expertise in the modern AI stack, including LLM orchestration (LangChain, LlamaIndex), vector databases (Pinecone, Milvus), and traditional ML frameworks (TensorFlow, Scikit-Learn)
Hands-on experience designing agentic systems, autonomous workflows, or cognitive architectures
Strong understanding of Platform Architecture and MLOps, including Kubernetes, model serving (BentoML, TGI, vLLM), and automated retraining pipelines
Experience, working with and influencing, Enterprise Architecture frameworks and navigating complex governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) environments
Hands-on experience with cloud computing platforms (Google Cloud, Azure, and AWS)
Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to create clear architectural diagrams and whitepapers for both technical and non-technical audiences. Comfort and experience presenting and compiling materials for Executive audiences
Preferred
Master's or PhD in Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or a related field is preferred; equivalent professional experience is required
Prior experience with retail industry is preferred
Benefits
Paid time off
Health
Dental
Vision
Life and disability benefits
Company
Ulta Beauty
Ulta Beauty is a beauty retailer that offers a wide range of products including cosmetics, fragrances, skincare, and hair care.
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Ulta Beauty 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
2020 (9)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$266.3MKey Investors
Berkshire HathawayDimensional Fund Advisors
2024-08-14Post Ipo Equity· $266.3M
2016-10-11Post Ipo Equity
2007-10-25IPO
Leadership Team
Kecia Steelman
President & CEO
Chris Lialios
Senior Vice President Controller
Recent News
2026-02-04
Company data provided by crunchbase