Principal Network, Infrastructure, and AI Solutions Architect

Position: Principal Network Infrastructure, and AI Solutions Architect
Location: Hybrid / Chicago, IL
Duration: Long Term Contract With potential extension.
Position Overview
We are seeking a Principal Network, Infrastructure, and AI Solutions Architect to drive enterprise-wide strategy, comprehensive architectural documentation, cross-stakeholder consensus, and actionable build approaches for secure public sector AI infrastructure.
The ideal candidate will combine executive-level strategic advisory skills with hands-on Terraform expertise to design, build, and optimize secure public sector AI environments, incorporating rigorous Costing and FinOps frameworks.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the overarching strategy for aligning AI initiatives with public sector enterprise networking, infrastructure, cloud, hosting, identity, integration, and foundation model access requirements.
• Define end-to-end build approaches and hands-on Terraform automation to provision secure AI development, testing, sandbox, pilot, and production environments.
• Author comprehensive architectural documentation, including Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), blueprints, and technical specifications for public sector AI infrastructure.
• Drive stakeholder consensus across executive leadership, agency CIOs, security, networking, and cloud operations teams on infrastructure standards and build plans.
• Establish Costing and FinOps frameworks to monitor, allocate, and optimize cloud consumption, token usage, and infrastructure expenditure for AI workloads.
• Support the CTO and Chief Enterprise Architect in developing a strategic, AI-ready legacy infrastructure roadmap and production-readiness criteria.
• Provide architectural recommendations and technical documentation to executive and technical stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• 18+ years of experience in software engineering, enterprise architecture, and cloud infrastructure.
• Proven track record of defining infrastructure strategy, architectural documentation, and build approaches for complex, public sector environments.
• Hands-on expertise using Terraform and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to provision and manage secure, scalable cloud environments.
• Deep domain experience in Cloud Costing and FinOps, including consumption modeling, cost allocation, and resource optimization for AI/cloud infrastructure.
• Exceptional leadership and facilitation skills with a demonstrated ability to build consensus among diverse, cross-functional, and executive stakeholders.
• Ability to work with senior technical and executive leadership.