Director, AI Architecture

Job Overview

The Director of AI Architecture will lead and oversee the definition and governance of the bank's enterprise AI platform architecture. This leadership role focuses on managing the core technology foundation that enables scalable AI adoption, including execution systems, control planes, model-serving infrastructure, and the overarching data architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and articulate a long-term AI platform strategy and technology roadmap aligned with the bank's objectives.
• Set enterprise-wide architectural principles, standards, and reusable frameworks to facilitate broad AI platform adoption.
• Shape the development of a scalable, resilient, compliant, and governed agentic AI ecosystem in coordination with relevant teams.
• Advise senior leadership on strategic investments and technology decisions related to the AI platform.
• Serve as the principal architect, defining platform interfaces, service boundaries, data contracts, and operational controls.
• Lead architecture reviews and authority forums for AI projects and collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, data, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and risk teams.
• Guide standards for orchestrating distributed AI workloads, including workflow durability, agent state management, and tool integration.
• Design canonical data models and semantic frameworks spanning diverse enterprise data domains, including lakehouse and graph database platforms.
• Ensure alignment of platform architecture with risk management, embedding security, privacy, auditability, and resiliency into design.
• Establish governance frameworks for identity management, authorization, audit, tool access, and usage controls.
• Mentor teams and foster architectural excellence, innovation, and compliance culture throughout the organization.

Candidate Profile

• Over 15 years of experience in software engineering or platform architecture, particularly with enterprise-scale systems.
• Demonstrated expertise in designing distributed systems regarding execution models, concurrency, state management, and resiliency.
• Strong background in defining architecture standards, technology roadmaps, governance frameworks in large federated enterprises.
• Experience with control plane architecture focusing on identity, authorization, policy enforcement, and machine-to-machine access control.
• Skilled in creating semantic data models, ontologies, knowledge graphs, and working with diverse data platform architectures.
• Familiarity with AI platform engineering aspects such as model servicing, LLM deployment, evaluation, observability, and multi-cloud infrastructure.
• Knowledge of agentic systems, orchestration frameworks, durable execution strategies, and integration patterns.
• Experienced in regulated environments that emphasize security, privacy, compliance, and operational resilience in architectural decisions.
• Ability to influence technology strategies across multidisciplinary teams without direct managerial authority.
• A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or related fields is required; relevant banking or regulated industry experience is advantageous.

About the Employer

Standard Chartered is an international bank with a history exceeding 170 years, recognized for its impact and agility. The institution values diversity, innovation, integrity, and collaborative culture, emphasizing client-centric values and long-term growth.

Employee Benefits and Culture

• Competitive remuneration aligned with the bank's Fair Pay Charter.
• Retirement funding, medical and life insurance, with additional flexible and voluntary benefits depending on location.
• Generous leave policies including annual leave, extended parental/maternity leave (up to 20 weeks), sabbatical options, and volunteering leave.
• Flexible working arrangements promoting a blend of home and office setups.
• Comprehensive wellbeing programs including digital wellbeing platforms, resilience development courses, employee assistance, and mental health support.
• Continuous opportunities for learning and growth through reskilling and upskilling initiatives with access to various learning formats.
• An inclusive and values-driven workplace that celebrates diverse backgrounds and fosters respect and potential realization.

Recruitment Process

Certain roles involve assessments to evaluate candidate suitability during the recruitment process.