AI Principal Architect / Lead (f/m/d)

Principal Architect (AI/GenAI Platforms)

Our Principal Architect / Lead Team is looking for YOU!

We are Uniper

At Uniper, we are pro-actively transforming the world of energy whilst at the same time ensuring security of energy supply. As an internationally operating company, we work in very diverse teams with the greatest possible working time flexibility for our employees. Our corporate culture is characterized by equal opportunities, mutual appreciation, and respect. With us, you will be able to develop new business models, work on technological solutions for a modern, sustainable, and future-oriented energy supply as well as pro-actively help to shape changes. Interested? Then we will look forward to meeting you!

Your responsibilities

• Own and continuously enhance the AI platforms and solution architecture across the full stack (model lifecycle, agent orchestration, and application integration).
• Establish and enforce architectural principles, standards, and reference architectures for AI and GenAI solutions.
• Evaluate, select, and govern AI technologies, frameworks, platforms, and cloud services in alignment with Uniper’s enterprise strategy (IT, Cloud & AI).
• Architect solutions for scalability, resilience, security, performance, and cost efficiency.
• Provide technical leadership to AI engineering, platform, and architecture teams; serve as the escalation point for complex technical decisions.
• Collaborate with product owners, security, data, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into robust, production-ready AI solutions.
• Define and govern architectural decision records, documentation standards, and design review processes to ensure traceability and consistency.
• Ensure architecture complies with security, privacy, and regulatory obligations, including risk assessments and control alignment in regulated environments.
• Lead evaluation of strategic technology options & vendor offerings and provide recommendations to support informed investment decisions.
• Oversee operational readiness, including observability, reliability engineering practices, and lifecycle support, to sustain production-grade platform operations.

Additional responsibilities (as applicable):

• Serve as the AI architecture representative in governance boards and architecture forums, providing direction, guidance, and technical assurance.
• Define and maintain the platform architecture roadmap and drive capability maturity in line with Uniper priorities.
• Architecture reviews for strategic initiatives, ensuring adherence to standards and timely resolution of cross-team design decisions.
• Contribute to the AI platform operating model, including service definitions, KPIs/SLAs, and integration with IT Service Management (ITSM) processes.
• Establish and lead an architecture community of practice, including coaching, knowledge sharing, and development of reusable patterns and accelerators.

Your profile

• You hold a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related discipline.
• You have proven experience in designing, deploying, and operating enterprise‑grade AI platforms that deliver measurable business value and meet stringent reliability and compliance requirements.
• You bring extensive expertise in Microsoft Azure architecture, GenAIOps, MLOps, and AI platform engineering, and you are comfortable leading technical teams through complex, cross‑functional delivery initiatives.
• You possess deep knowledge of security‑by‑design principles, compliance expectations, and governance frameworks applicable to regulated enterprise environments.
• You bring a growth mindset with openness to new technologies and a willingness to continuously develop relevant skills and capabilities.
• You combine strong architectural and technical leadership with excellent stakeholder management skills, enabling you to translate business objectives into executable technical strategies and platform roadmaps.
• You have demonstrated capability in establishing and operating architecture governance, including design reviews, standards enforcement, and decision traceability, ensuring consistent delivery discipline across teams and projects.
• You bring hands‑on experience in designing for operational excellence, including reliability, observability, performance optimization, and cost management of production services.
• In addition, you have practical experience implementing responsible AI controls and risk management measures for production AI systems, such as model monitoring, evaluation, and human‑in‑the‑loop mechanisms where required.
• Beyond these core qualifications, it would be considered an advantage if you have demonstrated experience with Generative AI, large language model (LLM) platforms, and agent‑based solution architectures.
• Relevant certifications in cloud, AI/ML, security, or enterprise architecture (e.g., vendor or industry-recognized credentials) would further strengthen your profile.
• Hands‑on experience with enterprise tooling and practices such as CI/CD for ML, model registries, automated testing, and deployment patterns would be highly beneficial.
• Experience integrating AI platforms with enterprise data ecosystems and application landscapes, including API management and event‑driven integration, would also be an asset.
• Exposure to responsible AI standards, model risk management, and audit‑ready controls within regulated environments would enhance your ability to ensure compliance and governance across production AI systems.
• Demonstrated success in collaborating effectively with offshore partners and operating across time zones would round out your profile.
• You communicate fluently in English at a business level, German proficiency is an advantage for collaboration and stakeholder engagement across Uniper’s international environment.
• You demonstrate strategic, systems‑level thinking and a structured approach to complex problem‑solving.
• You establish strong partnerships through effective leadership, collaboration, and stakeholder management.
• You balance innovation with risk management, compliance requirements, and operational stability.