Senior AI Architect

Position: Senior AI Architect (80-100%)
Location: Zürich

Senior AI Architect (80-100%)# Senior AI Architect (80-100%)At Vontobel, AI is moving beyond pilots.  We are building production-grade, regulated, and scalable AI systems — and we are looking for the architecture leader who sets the technical direction behind them.  As Senior AI Architect, you own the AI architecture across the firm: from LLM- and agent-based solutions to the enterprise platforms, guardrails, and standards that make them work in production.
* Define, own, and continuously evolve the enterprise AI architecture and lead hands-on delivery of production-grade AI solutions end-to-end.
* Design and build LLM- and agent-based AI systems
* Establish and apply hands-on best practices for LLM and RAG architectures
* Architect scalable, secure, and resilient AI platforms, leveraging distributed and event-driven architectures
* Act as a hands-on architecture leader, mentoring senior engineers, leading architecture and design reviews, and delivering production-ready prototypes and reference implementations.
* Work closely with Product, Security, Risk, Legal/Compliance, and IT, ensuring AI solutions meet regulatory, governance, and model-risk requirements, while leading the AI Developer Guild to raise engineering standards and capability across the organization.
* A hands-on senior AI architecture leader, not a purely strategic person with deep engineering experience (8+ years in software engineering), including several years in architecture or technical leadership roles delivering production-grade AI / LLM solutions.
* Strong backend and systems engineering expertise, with deep hands-on experience in Python and modern API/service development
* Practical experience engineering LLM-powered applications, including LLMs, RAG, and agent-based patterns
* Solid MLOps and AI platform engineering background, covering model and prompt lifecycle management, offline and online evaluation, drift detection, reproducibility, and auditability of AI systems.
* Proven Dev Ops and cloud architecture experience, including CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, container platforms (Kubernetes/Open Shift), observability, and secure cloud-native architectures (preferably Azure).
* Comfort working in regulated, enterprise environments, balancing speed, quality, and risk while collaborating closely with Security, Risk, Compliance, and IT stakeholders.
* A pragmatic, communicative leader and mentor, comfortable owning decisions, navigating ambiguity, influencing multiple teams, and continuously raising the technical bar; fluent in English, with German as a strong plus.
* Top Zurich location with collaboration spaces and free lunch.
* All the latest technology to help you excel and advance.
* Agile environment in how we think, the way we work and our trust for each other.
* Flat hierarchy with collaboration at all levels.
* Campus feeling and a collaborative spirit.

We are looking for talented people, not just a CV that ticks all the boxes. Even if you do not have absolutely everything we have asked for, if this role sounds like a good fit for you, we encourage you to apply.

At Vontobel, you are building better futures for our clients and society, as well as for yourself. As a family-owned and publicly listed company with over 2,000 professionals based in 28 locations globally and headquartered in Zurich, we’re committed to long-term thinking and sustainability.

Our diverse team values unique perspectives, and we hire individuals determined to deliver in a dynamic and changing world. Even if you don’t meet all the criteria, we encourage you to apply if you’re enthusiastic about the role.

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