AI Architect

Hitachi Solutions Europe is a global Digital, Data and Technology consultancy, Microsoft Gold partner and Cloud Services partner, specialising in end-to-end transformation. As a global consultancy firm working across the private and public sectors, we specialise in Dynamics 365 Business Applications, Power Platform, including Azure, Application Modernisation and Data & Analytics. Our highly skilled team help drive improvements, creating efficiency and growth within organisations. We are committed to Microsoft technologies, with a mission to revolutionise modern businesses. To achieve this we employ the best, most dedicated talent to deliver outstanding technology solutions to both our local and global clients. Hitachi Solutions offers competitive compensation packages (incl. bonuses), pension and benefits plans. Work/Life balance is an essential part of our culture, and all our employees are home workers, although you will be expected to come into our or customer’s offices regularly. We operate a comprehensive career development programme that includes mentoring and training plans to ensure that you will continue to grow and develop your career at Hitachi.

We are growing our consulting team, and looking for an experienced AI Architect to lead the design and delivery of secure, scalable and responsible AI solutions across enterprise and public‑sector programmes. This role combines hands‑on technical expertise with strong architectural leadership, shaping end‑to‑end AI solutions from early discovery through to production delivery and scale. You will act as a trusted advisor to clients and internal teams, defining AI architectures, setting standards and guardrails, and ensuring AI is applied where it delivers real business value.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and own end‑to‑end AI client‑specific solution architectures, including Generative AI, Agents and traditional ML.
• Define and maintain enterprise AI architecture patterns, reference architectures, and reusable building blocks within the Microsoft ecosystem.
• Lead AI governance, security and Responsible AI by design, ensuring solutions meet regulatory, ethical and organisational standards.
• Provide architectural oversight across delivery teams, ensuring quality and scalability.
• Support pre‑sales and discovery, shaping solution approaches and technical estimates and delivery roadmaps.
• Advise stakeholders on AI feasibility, trade‑offs, risks and long‑term sustainability.
• Build hands‑on prototypes, reference implementations and reusable accelerators to remain close enough to the code to set credible technical direction and unblock delivery teams.

Qualifications Required Skills & Experience

• Significant overall experience delivering AI and Data solutions in complex enterprise environments, with a minimum of 5 years hands‑on AI delivery experience.
• Proven experience delivering production‑grade AI solutions end‑to‑end, from discovery through to live operations and ongoing model management.
• Hands‑on expertise across Microsoft cloud and AI ecosystem, including Microsoft Foundry and data platform.
• Strong experience with integrating low‑code Power Platform solutions into enterprise‑scale solutions, including hands‑on experience with Copilot Studio.
• Solid understanding of Microsoft security, identity and compliance (Entra ID, RBAC, network isolation, data protection).
• Strong experience designing LLM‑based solutions, including Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering strategies and agent‑based architectures, leveraging frameworks such as Semantic Kernel, LangChain, and Microsoft Agent Framework.
• Deep practical experience with classical Machine Learning, including supervised and unsupervised learning, feature engineering, model selection, training pipelines, evaluation frameworks and production lifecycle management, equivalent in depth to GenAI expertise.
• Proven ability to assess client use cases and make well‑reasoned architectural decisions between classical ML and Generative AI approaches; and articulate clearly why.
• Strong experience in cloud‑native architecture, including API‑based and event‑driven designs, enterprise integration patterns and architectures focused on scalability, resilience and reliability.
• Experience with DevOps, MLOps and LLMOps practices, including CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, environment strategies and operating LLM‑based solutions in production, with a strong focus on model and prompt lifecycle management, observability and evaluation, reliability and cost management.
• Strong understanding of Generative AI governance, operational controls and cost evaluation, including monitoring usage, performance and designing solutions that are supportable, auditable and sustainable at scale.
• Strong experience embedding Responsible AI and governance into Generative AI solutions, covering safety, risk management, transparency, explainability, human‑in‑the‑loop design and regulatory alignment.
• Desirable experience in integrating enterprise data platforms with AI solutions, including familiarity with Lakehouse architectures and data engineering principles.
• Proven experience in a consulting role, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes, effectively engaging non‑technical stakeholders and senior leaders.
• Good experience of managing and mentoring junior AI engineers or consultants.
• Must hold at least two relevant Microsoft certifications (AI-901, AI-103, DP-800 AZ‑305., AI-300), or be actively working towards them.
• Candidates must hold, or be eligible for, UK Security Clearance.