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About the Role

The Principal Architect is a senior technical leadership role responsible for defining and maintaining the architectural standards, integration patterns, and technical governance for AI Operating System (AIOS), the AI-native platform, across all client engagements. Your primary goal is to ensure that all squad-level architecture decisions align with enterprise standards, that the platform remains scalable and maintainable at scale, and that reusable capabilities are properly designed and shared across the organization. This position serves as the leading technical authority across the client AI transformations, providing architectural leadership to engagements. It establishes long-term technical direction, influences enterprise technology decisions, and ensures AIOS implementations remain scalable, secure, and aligned with both client enterprise architecture and Zafin’s.

Responsibilities

Define target-state enterprise architecture for complex AIOS transformations, ensuring alignment between client business strategy, technology landscape, and AI operating model.
Define and maintain platform-wide architecture standards for agent design, orchestration, integration patterns, and API design.
Review and approve squad-level architecture decisions for alignment with enterprise standards and best practices.
Lead the development, governance, and adoption of reusable reference architectures, implementation patterns, and technical capabilities across client engagements.
Partner with Agent Architects and Senior Agent Engineers across client-facing squads to align on design standards and drive adoption of platform patterns.
Serve as the senior technical advisor to CIOS, Chief Architects, and enterprise technology leaders during client engagements including conducting complex architecture reviews and novel implementations; translate technical standards into client context.
Identify architectural patterns emerging in client engagements and translate into reusable reference architectures, and implementation guidance where applicable.
Develop and maintain security and data governance patterns for AI systems; ensure compliance with regulatory and risk requirements.
Mentor and coach junior architects and senior engineers on architecture approaches, design trade-offs, and platform standards.
Identify and address architecture technical debt; propose recommendations that improve scalability, maintainability, and reusability.
Serve as escalation point for architecture decisions that span multiple squads or have platform-wide implications.
Communicate architecture vision, standards, and decisions to executive and technical stakeholders quarterly or as needed.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in enterprise technology delivery, including senior leadership or executive client-facing roles.
Experience designing enterprise-scale AI platforms incorporating agentic AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), orchestration frameworks, API ecosystems, and cloud-native architectures.
Experience providing technical leadership across multiple enterprise transformations simultaneously.
Deep expertise in agent orchestration frameworks, integration architecture, API design, and enterprise software architecture patterns.
Demonstrated experience defining and scaling reusable technical standards across multiple teams or at an enterprise scale.
Strong grounding in security and data governance patterns for AI/ML systems in regulated environments.
Ability to influence enterprise architecture decisions at CIO, Chief Architect, and executive technology leadership without direct reporting authority.
Experience establishing reference architectures, technical standards, and governance models adopted across multiple delivery organizations.
Excellent communicator who can translate architecture standards and technical concepts into practical guidance for engineers at different levels.
Prior experience as a Principal Architect, Chief Architect, at a software/SaaS or AI company.
Experience with Azure AI, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Open AI, Anthropic or comparable enterprise AI ecosystems.
Track record of building reusable component libraries or platforms that drove measurable adoption and reduced duplicate engineering effort.
Experience with enterprise architecture governance frameworks.
Background in financial services technology or regulated industries.
Experience designing and implementing observability, monitoring, and governance systems for AI/ML platforms.
Published papers, speaking engagements, or open-source contributions demonstrating thought leadership in architecture.

Skills

AIOS
AI-native platform
Agent design
Orchestration
Retrieval
Memory
Prompt engineering
Evaluation
Observability
Integration
Security
Responsible AI implementation
Agentic AI
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
Orchestration frameworks
API ecosystems
Cloud-native architectures
Integration architecture
API design
Enterprise software architecture patterns
Security patterns for AI/ML systems
Data governance patterns for AI/ML systems
Azure AI
AWS Bedrock
Google Vertex AI
Open AI
Anthropic
Enterprise architecture governance frameworks
Observability systems for AI/ML platforms
Monitoring systems for AI/ML platforms
Governance systems for AI/ML platforms

Location

Toronto, Canada

Work Type

Hybrid

Experience Level

Principal
Senior
15+ years

Benefits

Competitive salaries
Annual bonus potential
Generous paid time off
Paid volunteering days
Wellness benefits
Robust opportunities for professional growth and career advancement

About the Company

Zafin is an AI platform company helping regulated institutions modernize how critical work is designed, governed, and delivered.
Our technology enables organizations to move faster while maintaining the governance, accountability, and control required in highly regulated environments.
Our portfolio includes Zafin AIOS, an agent orchestration platform for governed AI work; the Zafin Banking Platform, which helps banks modernize product, pricing, offers, billing, loyalty, and relationship management; and Zafin IO, an integration platform that connects data, systems, and workflows across complex enterprise environments.
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Zafin partners with leading financial institutions across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
As AI transforms the future of financial services, we're building the platforms that help regulated organizations adopt AI responsibly and at scale.

Equal Opportunity

Zafin welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.
Zafin is committed to protecting the privacy and security of the personal information collected from all applicants throughout the recruitment process. The methods by which Zafin contains uses, stores, handles, retains, or discloses applicant information can be accessed by reviewing Zafin’s privacy policy at https://zafin.com/privacy-notice/. By submitting a job application, you confirm that you agree to the processing of your personal data by Zafin described in the candidate privacy notice.