Hybrid Principal Software – AI Architect

at BLUE ORIGIN

• Job title: Principal Software – AI Architect
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: $230,773 - $323,081 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: Cloud, Kubernetes, SDLC, Terraform
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Greater Seattle Area, United States

About the role

• Principal Software & AI Architect at Blue Origin developing AI-driven solutions for rocket engines. Focused on product and SaaS solution architecture and enterprise guardrails.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture for the AI application: domain model, APIs, UX/backend integration, data flows, and cloud/Kubernetes topology
• Define and implement multi-tenancy and isolation strategy (pooled vs. siloed vs. VPC), regionalization, and tenant-aware observability/support
• Establish SLAs/SLOs, rate limits/quotas, HA/DR, and resilience testing (chaos/failover); drive SLO/error-budget practices
• Build commercialization enablers: SSO (SAML/OIDC), SCIM provisioning, fine-grained RBAC/ABAC/DBAC, a zero-trust architected entitlement service
• Stand up ML Ops: data pipelines, feature store, model registry, CI/CD for ML, offline/online eval harness, model rollback/kill switches, human-in-the-loop workflows
• Security & privacy by design: threat modeling (including AI-specific risks), secrets/KMS, encryption at rest/in transit, audit logging, data retention/deletion, PII handling, secure SDLC controls (SAST/DAST/SBOM)
• Define BU architecture principles, capability map, and target state; publish reference architectures and an approved tech catalog
• Set identity and integration standards (API/eventing), data governance (lineage, quality, residency), and IaC patterns; create “paved roads” (golden templates for services, pipelines, observability, security checks, w/ auditability)
• Spin-out readiness: design boundary APIs with the parent company, plan data partitioning and key management
• Establish lightweight governance (Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), design reviews, fast exceptions) that enables speed while managing risk
• Mentor & support engineers on the team.

Requirements

• Minimum Bachelor's ideally Master's degree in Computer Science
• 10+ years in software architecture/engineering
• 5+ years leading architecture for customer-facing SaaS products
• Strong familiarity with AI and ML concepts
• Demonstrated experience shipping multi-tenant (or VPC-isolated) SaaS with defined SLAs and business customers
• Deep cloud/platform skills: containers/Kubernetes, IaC (e.g., Terraform), networking, CI/CD, observability, performance/cost optimization
• Security/compliance expertise: threat modeling, secure SDLC controls (SAST/DAST/SBOM), identity (OIDC/SAML) and provisioning (SCIM), audit logging; SOC 2 readiness or operation
• Data and AI/ML systems: data pipelines/governance, model lifecycle and MLOps, evaluation/guardrails, responsible AI practices
• Product mindset: understands packaging/entitlements, usage metering, versioning/compatibility, and impact on margins and customer experience
• Excellent communication and influence across executives, customers, and engineers; ability to create clarity and drive decisions in ambiguity.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Short and long-term disability
• 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%
• Education Support Program
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours, and up to 14 company-paid holidays.