Principal Architect AI Platform

BMO seeks a Principal Architect AI Platform to serve as the architectural authority for its AI Engineering function across cloud and workspace environments, including AWS, Azure, Microsoft 365 and SaaS AI surfaces. The role aligns AI platform and domain implementations across teams while ensuring decisions meet OSFI and OCC regulatory expectations.

Responsibilities

• Define enterprise AI reference architectures, standards and guardrails; keep the Control Plane, Domain Orchestration and domain-owned execution coherent.
• Set direction across platform, developer experience, security, DevOps and data engineering teams. Review major AI designs for scalability, security, cost, data residency, Responsible AI and regulatory fit, and represent them at the Architecture Review Board.
• Act as architectural authority to the Microsoft AI Council: prepare decisions for ratification, resolve Microsoft AI boundary questions, assess preview features against governance, and escalate unresolved matters. Govern the architecture of Copilot, Copilot Studio, Fabric Copilot and Microsoft Agent 365, including the Three-Zone citizen governance framework and AI Registry federation.
• Assess emerging AI capabilities and foundation models. Guide implementation of gateways, policy and identity services, registries, guardrails and observability; mentor architects and principal engineers. Steward transition architectures for the Identity Fabric and Policy Engine toward enterprise ownership. Design for runtime model-risk and regulatory evidence, including OSFI E-23 and OCC expectations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related technical field; master's preferred. Requires 10+ years in software engineering, solution architecture and enterprise architecture, including substantial principal or senior architect-level work, plus 3+ years focused on AI/ML and GenAI architecture with exposure to production RAG, agentic workflows, model serving and guardrails.
• Requires cross-team architectural leadership, experience architecting AI in a regulated industry, and knowledge of model-risk management. Technical depth should cover AI platforms, multi-cloud and Microsoft AI services, policy-as-code, workload identity, zero trust, APIs, event-driven integration, MLOps/LLMOps and CI/CD. The role calls for Responsible AI and privacy expertise, hands-on prototyping fluency, stakeholder influence, mentoring and sound judgment under ambiguity.
• Financial-services experience, Python, a master's degree and relevant cloud, AI or enterprise-architecture certifications are preferred.

The listed US locations include Chicago and virtual locations in NY, FL, CA and TX. Applications have a stated deadline of 10/29/2026. The salaried pay range is $112,200.00–$209,000.00; BMO describes potential incentives and benefits including health insurance, tuition reimbursement, life and accident insurance, and retirement savings plans.