Senior AI Service Architect

Department: IT Cyber Collaboration Svcs

Salary/Grade: ITS/83

range for this position will be between $125,220-160,000 per year. Offered salary will be determined by the applicant's education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.

Job Summary:

We are seeking a senior-level architect to help shape Northwestern Universitys enterprise AI service portfolio, including direct engagement with AI platform vendors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and emerging providers. This role will contribute to the institutions AI strategy and governance in collaboration with senior leaders and partner teams, while focusing on configuration standards, guardrails, and operational controls needed to ensure the responsible, secure, and compliant use of generative AI technologies across academic, research, and administrative environments.

The successful candidate will serve as an institutional subject matter expert for AI model platforms and AI service governance. They will evaluate AI vendors, oversee platform configuration and guardrails, help establish approved use patterns, support model access and data protection decisions, and guide the lifecycle of enterprise AI services. Working closely with security, privacy, legal, procurement, research, and platform engineering teams, this individual will ensure that governance decisions, guardrails, and platform controls are translated into properly configured and consistently managed AI services that align with institutional requirements while enabling innovation and adoption across the university.

This position does not have direct reports but requires leadership through influence, guiding institutional decisions regarding AI service selection, risk management, model governance, vendor capabilities, and responsible AI practices.

• Note: Not all aspects of the job are covered by this job description.

Specific Responsibilities:

Enterprise AI Service Strategy

• Contribute to the institutional strategy and roadmap for enterprise AI model platforms and AI services, ensuring the service portfolio reflects governance direction, institutional priorities, and responsible adoption goals.
• Evaluate AI platform vendors, models, service capabilities, and deployment options to inform decisions about which offerings should be made available for academic, research, and administrative use.
• Help define approved enterprise AI service offerings, access patterns, service tiers, and lifecycle expectations for platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Microsoft, and emerging providers.
• Translate institutional AI strategy, governance requirements, and risk decisions into practical service direction for AI platform selection, configuration, and adoption.
• Advise senior leaders and partner teams on AI platform capabilities, limitations, vendor maturity, institutional risks, and opportunities for responsible innovation.

AI Platform Governance

• Help define governance controls for enterprise AI platforms including OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure AI, Google Gemini, and future AI services.
• Contribute to policies governing prompt handling, data retention, model access, model training restrictions, data residency, and AI usage monitoring.
• Support approval and review processes for new AI capabilities and models before institutional deployment.
• Help translate acceptable use standards and responsible AI requirements into platform controls and service practices.

AI Guardrails and Configuration Management

• Lead configuration activities for enterprise AI platforms and administrative consoles in alignment with approved governance direction.

• Implement and maintain technical guardrails including:

• Data protection policies

• Enterprise identity integration

• User provisioning and access controls

• Model access controls

• Content filtering

• DLP integration

• Audit logging

• Prompt and response controls

• API governance

• Configure vendor-specific safety features and compliance controls.

• Contribute to standards for AI agents, assistants, custom GPTs, Claude projects, and future AI applications.

Vendor Management and Technical Evaluation

• Serve as the primary technical relationship manager for AI platform vendors.
• Lead technical reviews of new vendor capabilities and roadmap announcements.
• Assess vendor security architecture, privacy commitments, compliance capabilities, and operational maturity.
• Participate in contract review, security review, and procurement processes.
• Define technical requirements during vendor evaluations and RFPs.

AI Risk, Security, and Compliance

• Partner with Information Security, Privacy, and Legal teams to assess AI-specific risks.
• Conduct risk assessments related to:
• Model behavior
• Prompt injection
• Data leakage
• Hallucination risk
• Third-party integrations
• AI agent autonomy
• Develop mitigations and governance requirements.
• Monitor evolving regulatory requirements for AI systems.

AI Service Operations

• Establish operational standards for lifecycle management of enterprise AI services.
• Monitor usage patterns, adoption metrics, and platform health.
• Support change management and model upgrade procedures.
• Develop testing and validation processes for new model releases in partnership with security, privacy, platform, and governance stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with research, academic, administrative, and technology leaders to understand institutional AI needs.
• Coordinate closely with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, infrastructure, security, and data governance teams.
• Provide enterprise-wide architectural guidance for AI service adoption.

Miscellaneous

Performs other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Strong knowledge of enterprise AI platforms, model capabilities, vendor ecosystems, and emerging generative AI service patterns.
• Ability to translate institutional strategy, governance direction, and risk requirements into practical platform configurations and service controls.
• Experience with identity, access management, data protection, compliance, audit logging, and security controls for cloud-based services.
• Skill in evaluating vendor security, privacy, operational maturity, contractual implications, and technical roadmaps.
• Ability to lead through influence across security, privacy, legal, procurement, research, academic, and technology stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to brief senior leaders and explain complex AI topics clearly.

Benefits:

At Northwestern, we are proud to provide meaningful and competitive benefits. The available benefits package for this position will include health, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance; paid vacation and holidays; paid medical/sick and parental leave; tuition benefits for the employee and dependents; pre-tax and flex spending accounts for commuting and dependent care; generous retirement savings options; and wellness programs. For a comprehensive overview of available benefits, including eligibility details, visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/benefits/index.html to learn more.

Work-Life and Wellness:

Northwestern offers comprehensive programs and services to help you and your family navigate life's challenges and opportunities and adopt and maintain healthy lifestyles.

We support flexible work arrangements where possible and programs to help you locate and pay for quality, affordable childcare and senior/adult care. Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/benefits/work-life/index.html to learn more.

Professional Growth & Development:

Northwestern supports employee career development in all circumstances whether your workspace is on campus or at home. If you're interested in developing your professional potential or continuing your formal education, we offer a variety of tools and resources. Visit us at https://www.northwestern.edu/hr/learning/index.html to learn more.

Northwestern University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics, including disability and veteran status. View Northwestern's non-discrimination statement. Job applicants who wish to request an accommodation in the application or hiring process should contact the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance. View additional information on the accommodations process.