Principal Architect - AI

Microsoft Industry Solutions – Global Center Innovation and Delivery Center (GCID) delivers end-to-end solutions by enabling accelerated adoption and productive use of Microsoft technologies. An organization of well over 1000+ exceptional people, GCID presents a compelling opportunity for senior technical leaders to drive enterprise scale transformation through consulting, architecture, and delivery leadership.  The Principal Architect is a senior technical and business leader accountable for shaping, influencing, and driving successful outcomes across large, complex, multiyear enterprise engagements. This role operates at the convergence of technology, business strategy, and executive decision making, acting as a trusted advisor to customer CEO, CIO, CTO, and CDO stakeholders.

Engineering Excellence  Set and enforce engineering excellence standards across organizations, ensuring architecture integrity, quality, security, resilience, and performance at enterprise scale.  Champion modern engineering practices including AI assisted development, DevSecOps, SRE, observability, and platform engineering.  Drive creation and reuse of enterprise grade reference architectures, accelerators, patterns, and paved road platforms.  Establish and govern architecture review cadences aligned with the Microsoft WellArchitected Framework, influencing decisions at executive and transformation program levels.    Innovation & Thought Leadership  Act as a visible thought leader with customers and internal leadership—shaping future state architectures, modernization strategies, and AI adoption roadmaps.  Track and evaluate emerging technologies, AI platforms, and engineering paradigms to inform strategic investments and differentiated offerings.  Influence innovation across GCID by sharing best practices, defining reusable assets, and mentoring senior architects.    Client Engagement & Solutioning  Operate as a trusted advisor to CEO / CIO / CTO stakeholders, guiding executive level conversations on digital transformation, AI adoption, cloud strategy, platform modernization, and operating model changes.  Lead executive design sessions, architecture boards, and transformation roadmap reviews, providing clear tradeoff analysis across cost, risk, timetovalue, and strategic outcomes.  Own technical leadership during presales, deal shaping, and complex pursuits, including estimates, risk profiling, executive narratives, and differentiated solution design.  Build long term executive relationships that position GCID as a strategic transformation partner, not just a delivery vendor.

Leadership, Mentorship & Organizational Impact  Provide seniormost technical leadership across multiple architect teams, fostering a strong culture of accountability, rigor, and innovation.  Mentor and develop senior and principal architects, setting clear expectations for L64/L65 progression and impact.  Influence talent strategy, capability development, and succession planning across Apps & AI engineering communities.    Quality, Security & Compliance  Ensure enterprise grade security, governance, reliability, and compliance across all engagements.  Drive adoption of secure by design, Responsible AI, and privacy first engineering practices aligned with customer regulatory and risk postures.  Partner with customer security, risk, and compliance leadership to design architectures ready for regulated and highly scrutinized environments.    Other  Embody our  culture  and  values    Qualifications 22+ years of experience in software engineering and enterprise architecture, with significant experience operating at CxO level technical leadership roles.  Proven track record leading largescale transformation programs across cloud, data, AI, and modern application platforms.  Strong executive communication, stakeholder influence,