Artificial Intelligence ( AI )  Solutions Architect

100% Remote (Phoenix, AZ local for initial equipment pickup). Excludes candidates interviewed for posting 9962.

About the Role

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solutions Architect (Contractor) will collaborate with our internal AI product management team, vendor partners, and development staff to enhance and optimize our AI systems. This role requires minimal supervision and independent judgment within defined parameters.

Key Responsibilities

1. AI Solution Design: Lead the design and implementation of secure, scalable AI and Agentic AI solutions aligned with DES mission, policies, and public-sector standards.
2. Architecture Definition: Define end-to-end AI architectures, including data ingestion, RAG pipelines, LLM orchestration, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
3. Technical Leadership: Provide technical guidance, architectural documentation for approvals, and leadership to internal teams and system integrators.
4. Compliance: Ensure adherence to State of Arizona security, privacy, accessibility, and data-governance requirements (PII, HIPAA, CJIS where applicable).
5. Best Practices: Establish reference architectures and best practices for responsible, ethical, and compliant AI use across DES.
6. Platform Integration: Evaluate and integrate AI platforms, cloud services, and vendor solutions in coordination with procurement and legal teams.
7. Explainable AI: Design architectures supporting explainability, auditability, bias mitigation, and transparency in decision-support systems.
8. Operationalization: Collaborate with DevOps, cybersecurity, and data teams to operationalize AI solutions from concept to production.
9. Strategic Support: Assist with AI strategy, roadmap development, and executive briefings to scale AI capabilities across DES programs.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science.

Skills Required

• AI Development with Agentic AI and Azure OpenAI.
• Proficiency in LLM, ML, RAG, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
• Experience with .Net (C#, VB.Net), HTML, JavaScript, and advanced automation tools (OCR, IDP, AI/ML).
• Demonstrable written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to design and implement AI agentic solutions from business and technical requirements.
• Ability to develop technical specifications, designs, and architecture artifacts.
• Ability to break down business problems into logical tasks and think creatively.
• Ability to perform code analysis to understand implementation details.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and changing priorities.

Skills Preferred

• Azure DevOps, Git, CI/CD.
• Familiarity with APIs/Services (REST & SOAP), MS Office, Google Suite, OnBase Unity Client.
• Experience in educating and mentoring developers on best practices.
• Experience with agile methodologies (Scrum, Trello, Kanban, SAFe, Lean) and SDLC/ITIL processes.