Lead AI Engineering Architect

About Teradata

At Teradata, we empower individuals with the most complete cloud analytics and data platform for AI. By providing harmonized data, reliable AI, and accelerated innovation, we enable leading enterprises to make confident, data-driven decisions at scale.

Role Overview

As a Lead AI Engineering Architect, you will take on a significant technical leadership role, responsible for the design, evolution, and scalability of Teradata's enterprise AI platforms and capabilities. This position transcends traditional feature delivery; you will own architectural decisions, influence the AI platform strategy, and guide complex initiatives across agentic AI, LLM platforms, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), vector stores, and developer-focused AI systems.

Your work will be largely autonomous, partnering closely with product and architectural leaders while elevating the technical capabilities across multiple teams.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture Lead the design and evolution of large-scale, distributed AI systems that power Teradata's AI platform and AI-native products. Own end-to-end architecture for critical AI capabilities such as agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, vector searches, semantic retrieval, and AI orchestration frameworks. Drive technical strategy and ensure architectural consistency across various engineering teams. AI Systems & Platform Development Design and implement production-grade AI systems using LLMs, embeddings, vector databases, and agent-based architectures. Build scalable, secure, and reusable platform services and APIs to support AI workloads throughout the software development lifecycle. Define and enforce guardrails for reliability, safety, governance, and cost management in enterprise AI systems. Cross Functional Influence Collaborate with product management, architecture, research, and cloud platform teams to transform business requirements into scalable AI solutions. Impact roadmap decisions by offering deep technical insights and tradeoff analysis. Serve as a technical escalation point for sophisticated system design, performance, and reliability challenges. Quality, Performance & Operational Excellence Promote best practices for testing, observability, evaluation, and production readiness of AI systems. Identify and address systemic performance bottlenecks, leading optimization efforts for distributed systems and AI pipelines. Establish engineering standards that enhance development velocity, quality, and operational resilience. Mentorship & Org Level Impact Mentor senior and staff engineers, providing guidance on architecture, design reviews, and technical decision-making. Enhance the engineering bar through design forums, technical reviews, and knowledge sharing. Lead by example through hands-on contributions to complex and business-critical challenges. Required Qualifications (Non-negotiable)

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. 12+ years of experience building backend services, distributed systems, or data/AI platforms. Proficient in Java, Go, or Python, with a background in building large-scale services. Deep understanding of distributed system design, scalability, fault tolerance, and cloud-native architectures. Proven track record in designing and operating production systems with SQL and NoSQL data stores. Preferred / Differentiating Skills

Experience with LLMs, embeddings, vector databases, and AI orchestration frameworks. Exposure to agentic AI patterns such as tool calling, planning, memory, and multi-step reasoning. Experience building or operating AI systems in cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP). Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and production-grade observability. Why You Will Love Teradata

We prioritize a people-first culture because we know our team members are at the heart of our success. We embrace a flexible work model, allowing you to decide how, when, and where to work. Our commitment to wellness ensures our employees can thrive personally and professionally. We strive to maintain an inclusive environment where everyone is celebrated for who they are.

Pay Rate: 199500.00 - 249400.00 - 299300.00 Annually

Starting pay will depend on geographic location, internal equity, job-related knowledge, skills, and candidate experience. All employees are eligible for one of our annual incentive plans, which are based on company performance and individual contributions. Those in this position can also participate in comprehensive benefits programs, including healthcare, life and disability insurance, a 401(k) retirement savings plan, and time-off programs.

Specific details on benefits, eligibility criteria, and plan options will be discussed during the hiring process.