Summary

The  Principal Solution Architect’s responsibilities include gathering requirements and functional specifications, assessing the current software systems in place to identify areas in need of improvement, and overseeing development teams for Enterprise wide Technology projects. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in data science, software engineering, and cloud technologies, with a proven track record of architecting scalable and robust AI/ML systems. You should also be able to regularly update the company leadership on any developments in systems architecture projects. To be successful as a solution architect, you should be able to integrate any updated specifications and requirements into the systems architecture across multiple domains or subject areas.

The salary range for this position is $143,000 - $215,000 per year, based on experience and qualifications with annual bonus available (variable depending on performance).  

In addition to the base salary, Perdue offers a competitive benefits package, including medical/Rx, 401(k) with employer match after 1 year, critical illness, accident insurance, dental, vison, life insurance, optional group life insurance, short-term and long-term disability protection, flexible spending accounts and paid time off.  

This position is based at Corporate Headquarters in Salisbury, MD.

Principal and Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end AI/ML architectures, including data pipelines, model training, deployment, and monitoring frameworks.
• Ensure the perspectives of DevOps/MLOps, DevSecOps, FinOps, and Governance are addressed.
• Leverage existing infrastructure wherever possible (Snowflake / Dataiku / Power BI / Azure).
• Collaborate with data scientists, engineers, and business stakeholders to define project requirements and deliverables.
• Evaluate and select appropriate AI/ML frameworks, tools, and platforms based on project needs.
• Ensure scalability, reliability, and security of AI/ML solutions in production environments.
• Oversee the integration of AI/ML models into existing products and services.
• Building and integrating information systems to meet the company’s needs across multiple domains or subject areas. Assessing the systems architecture currently in place and working with multiple technical staff to recommend solutions to improve it. Resolving complex technical problems as they arise.
• Providing supervision and guidance to multiple development teams. Providing input on scope and representing business-driven AI and Analytic interests with counterparts in IT
• Continually researching current and emerging technologies and proposing changes where needed.
• Informing various stakeholders about any problems with the current technical solutions being implemented.
• Assessing the business impact that certain technical choices have.
• Providing updates to stakeholders on product development processes, and design
• Working with multiple Project teams to construct logical and physical designs that stay true to enterprise Reference model and define technical model for AI and Analytics. Drive future state vision for Perdue

Minimum Education

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, SW engineering, computer science, or related field.

Experience Requirements

• 15+ years of experience in IT, with 5+ years focus on system architecture. CPG experience
• At least five years of experience leading Analytic projects and teams involving complex and large cross functional, business transformation initiatives.
• Proven experience in engineering and software architecture design.
• Sound knowledge of various operating systems and databases.

Experience Preferred

• ML/DL Frameworks: TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, Scikit-learn, XGBoost
• DevOps / MLOps: GitHub, GitHub Actions, CI/CD pipelines
• DevSecOps: RBAC, SSO / SCIM, OAuth, Snowflake’s security model
• Data Visualization: Power BI, Angular
• Monitoring & Orchestration: Dagster, Airflow, Grafana, Prometheus
• Data Ingestion: Airbyte, Snowpipe Files & Streaming, Kafka, APIs
• Data Processing: Dataiku, Spark, Snowflake (streams / tasks / dynamic tables ), Python, SQL
• Compute: Snowflake Warehouses & Compute Pools, Azure VM’s, Kubernetes, Docker
• Storage: Snowflake, SQL, Iceberg Tables, Parquet, ADLS
• Cloud Platforms: Azure
• Strong preference for experience in Snowflake AI/ML capabilities: feature store, model registry, vector db, cortex AI, etc

Environmental Factors and Physical Requirements

• Position is mostly sedentary but may require occasional moving to other offices or buildings. 
• May need to move light equipment or supplies from one place to another. 
• May need to access files, supplies and equipment. 
• Work activity is in an office, open-partitioned, cubicle environment.