Principal AI Architect & Governance

As Principal, AI Architect and Governance, you will serve as Vuori's senior technical authority for AI platform design, enterprise architecture standards, and responsible AI. You will define how AI systems are designed, built, integrated, and governed across the organization, ensuring they are secure, compliant, scalable, reliable, and aligned with business priorities. This is a senior role for someone who combines deep, hands-on technical expertise with enterprise influence. You will work directly with engineers on architecture and design decisions, translate emerging AI capabilities into pragmatic enterprise patterns, and advise technology, business, security, legal, and data leaders on platform choices and risk. You will raise the quality and consistency of AI development through clear standards, reusable patterns, design reviews, and governance guardrails, without direct people-management responsibility. What you'll get to do:Set direction and raise the bar Shape the evolution of Vuori's enterprise AI architecture, ensuring it keeps pace with the growth of the business and the maturity of the AI ecosystem. Establish reference architectures, engineering standards, and integration patterns that teams across Vuori use when building AI systems. Lead technical evaluations of AI platforms, foundation models, cloud services, and tooling — recommending adoption decisions based on rigorous analysis of performance, cost, security, and fit. Raise the architectural capability of engineers across Vuori through design reviews, pairing, documentation, and reusable patterns others adopt because they are good. Bring clarity to complex, ambiguous problems — including calling out when a proposed AI approach is not the right solution. Make build-versus-buy-versus-partner recommendations that shape the AI platform for years and communicate the rationale clearly to technical and non-technical audiences. Build and maintain AI governance Develop and operationalize Vuori's AI governance framework, covering model risk management, data privacy, bias detection, audit trails, and regulatory compliance. Establish AI engineering standards, security guardrails, testing and evaluation protocols, and responsible AI policies that apply consistently across all teams building AI systems. Create governance structures that give teams a clear path to building and shipping AI responsibly — balancing speed of innovation with enterprise-grade risk management. Partner with Legal, Compliance, Security, and Data teams to ensure AI systems meet applicable regulations, data handling requirements, and ethical standards. Implement ongoing monitoring, incident response, and continuous improvement processes for AI systems in production. Partner across the organization Work closely with senior technology and business leaders to align AI architecture and governance with organizational priorities and investment decisions. Serve as a clear, credible voice on AI architecture and risk in conversations with executive sponsors, engineering leadership, and external partners or auditors. Collaborate with AI product, engineering, and data teams to ensure architectural and governance requirements are understood and built in from the start — not added after the fact. Mentor engineers and technical leads through architectural guidance, design reviews, and the development of shared standards they can apply independently. Measure and evolve Track and report on platform reliability, governance adherence, security posture, and the business impact of AI architecture investments. Continuously assess the AI landscape and incorporate emerging technologies, best practices, and industry standards to keep Vuori's AI ecosystem well-positioned. Use data and operational experience to refine standards, improve governance processes, and remove friction for teams building AI responsibly.