Vice President (AI Solutions Architect)

Position Information

Hiring Manager:

Associate Director

Department:

Technology Solutions

Department Overview

The Technology Solutions (“TS”) Department is responsible for designing and delivering state of the art technology solutions that create efficiency, mitigate risk and grow revenue for the Firm. Technology Solutions is also responsible for defining, managing and executing a robust Cyber Security program following the NIST Cyber Security Framework. Technology Solutions focuses on technical excellence through innovative application designs, robust data integration and analytics, high availability infrastructure and gold level service for our key stakeholders with information security embedded throughout. Critical functions within Technology Solutions include Project Management, Vendor Management, Business Analysis, Enterprise Data Governance and Stewardship, Application Development and 3rd Party Integration and Strategic and Secure Infrastructure and Operations. The Technology Solutions Department collaborates closely with Firm leadership and business unit heads to develop plans in line with business objectives.

 

Position Responsibilities

We are seeking a Vice President, Applied AI Solutions to serve as a leader and subject matter expert in the practical application of artificial intelligence across the Firm.  Partnering closely with business leaders and the AI Business Transformation Team, this individual will identify and shape high-impact AI opportunities, translate business needs into scalable solution designs and provide architectural guidance from concept through implementation.  Leveraging deep expertise in AI technologies, enterprise architecture, process design and the Firm's technology ecosystem, the successful candidate will help establish reusable patterns, standards and capabilities that accelerate AI adoption while ensuring solutions are aligned with business objectives, security requirements, operational standards and long-term outcomes.

 

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Partnering with the AI Business Transformation team and business stakeholders to understand prioritized opportunities, operating context, underlying problems, desired outcomes, process constraints and user needs.
• Leading discovery and solution-design sessions, challenging assumptions, reframing requirements around intended outcomes and building stakeholder consensus on the recommended approach.
• Translating business outcomes and future-state processes into practical AI solution concepts, target-state workflows and implementation-ready architectures.
• Maintaining a strong understanding of the Firm’s technology landscape and determining the appropriate solution approach, including when to leverage existing enterprise capabilities, configure or extend approved platforms, build custom AI solutions or pursue non-AI alternatives.
• Designing secure, scalable AI and agentic architectures that integrate probabilistic AI with deterministic rules, workflows and controls, incorporating required models, data, grounding, enterprise context, tools, integrations, permissions, human oversight and observability.
• Evaluating solution feasibility and tradeoffs across business fit, user experience, data readiness, technical complexity, security, reliability, supportability, performance and cost; providing clear recommendations to business and technology stakeholders.
• Identifying high-risk or novel assumptions requiring prototypes, demonstrations or technical spikes; partnering with prototyping resources to validate them and directly develop targeted prototypes when appropriate.
• Producing architecture specifications, diagrams, decision records, interface definitions and technical requirements that enable engineering teams to build, test, deploy and support solutions.
• Leading engineering handoff and remaining engaged through implementation and production release to resolve design questions, incorporate technical findings and ensure solutions remain aligned with business outcomes, approved architecture and Firm standards.
• Identifying gaps in enterprise platforms and reusable capabilities and recommending standards-aligned services, integrations, controls and architecture patterns to support emerging use cases at scale.
• Developing and maintaining reusable AI patterns, reference architectures, design standards, accelerators, agent skills, harnesses and evaluation methods to improve the consistency, speed and quality of future solutions.
• Developing and applying evaluation criteria for AI model and system quality, safety, reliability, performance and cost to guide design decisions and production readiness.
• Staying current on advances in generative AI, agentic systems, models, platforms, open standards and architecture practices; translating relevant developments into practical guidance and recommendations for the Firm.

 

Candidate Requirements

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, data science or a related field required; advanced degree or equivalent depth of professional experience preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in solution architecture, software engineering, AI/ML engineering, enterprise application design, technology consulting or related disciplines with demonstrated experience guiding complex solutions from discovery through production.
• Demonstrated ability to partner with business stakeholders to uncover underlying needs, translate ambiguous problems into clear solution designs, challenge assumptions and build consensus across business and technology teams.
• Deep expertise in applied generative AI architecture, including large language models, agentic and multi-agent patterns, retrieval-augmented generation, context engineering, knowledge grounding, prompt and tool design, orchestration and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Strong command of modern AI architecture patterns and open standards, including Model Context Protocol and related approaches for connecting models, agents, tools, data and enterprise services.
• Demonstrated experience designing hybrid solutions that combine probabilistic AI with deterministic software, workflows and rules based on use-case requirements for reliability, control and explainability.
• Experience assessing enterprise technology landscapes, mapping use cases to existing platform capabilities and recommending reusable, standards-aligned extensions where capabilities do not fully meet business needs.
• Demonstrated experience developing implementation-ready architectures and guiding solutions through engineering handoff, build, testing and production release, including resolving design questions as technical findings emerge.
• Deep knowledge of Microsoft’s AI and data ecosystem, including Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform and Fabric with the judgment to determine when to configure, extend or build beyond existing capabilities.
• Strong understanding of enterprise data and integration patterns, including APIs, event-driven integration, structured and unstructured data, enterprise search, vector databases, data ingestion, storage, retrieval and grounding.
• Working knowledge of cloud and application architecture, identity and access management, information security, privacy, responsible AI, observability, reliability, performance, supportability and cost management.
• Experience defining and applying AI evaluation methods across groundedness, accuracy, safety, reliability, latency, user experience and operating cost to inform design and production-readiness decisions.
• Sufficient hands-on engineering capability to develop targeted prototypes, evaluate implementation approaches and collaborate credibly with engineering teams; proficiency in Python or another modern programming language strongly preferred.
• Experience applying process-design methods to rethink workflows, decisions and human-machine interactions around AI capabilities rather than simply automating existing processes.
• Exceptional analytical, problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex AI capabilities, constraints and architecture decisions into clear business terms.
• Proven ability to lead complex initiatives through influence and collaborate effectively across business teams, AI Business Transformation, architecture, engineering, data, security, risk and delivery functions.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively leverage AI tools in day-to-day work, with strong critical thinking to assess accuracy, limitations and appropriate use of AI generated outputs
• Enthusiastic about working in office and creating a Gold Standard hybrid work culture

Critical Competencies for Success

Our Gold Standards define key behaviors and competencies across 4 dimensions:  Leadership, Achieving Results, Personal Effectiveness and Thinking Critically. These behaviors and competencies drive our ability to win together. 

• Leadership:  Role models in this area consistently focus on the right goals and priorities and continually develop themselves and others. Always team players, they influence and engage with others to contribute to a supportive and inclusive culture where all feel welcome.

• Achieving Results:  Role models in this area are high achievers who develop careful plans and deliver consistently and effectively. They hold themselves and others accountable for delivering high quality results, and they remove barriers to ensure others can contribute and grow.

• Personal Effectiveness:  Role models in this area build strong relationships, treat others with respect and communicate effectively. They are driven to exceed expectations and are adaptable to changing circumstances.

• Thinking Critically:  Role models in this area understand our business, rely on analytical reasoning and seek diverse perspectives to solve problems. They are forward thinking, anticipating issues and addressing them in advance.

The department-specific competencies define the knowledge, skills and abilities that are needed to successfully perform the functional or technical work of this role.

• Technical Support:  Triages, troubleshoots and resolves technical support issues. Escalates issues as needed.

• Software Development Principals:  Utilizes software development, secure programming principles and a knowledge of programming languages to develop, configure and / or integrate new software and applications.

• Business Needs Assessment:  Identifies business needs across departments within the Firm to understand the challenges, goals and problems that the business needs to solve and identifies appropriate technical solutions.

• Data Management and Information Security:  Manipulates, restructures and / or queries data for various purposes, including reconciling issues in the database, designing database structures and / or generating reports. Adheres to governance principles and maintains data integrity and security.

• Risk Management:  Identifies, forecasts and articulates ways to pursue and manage informed risks in ambiguous, complex or uncertain situations based on sound value propositions and an analysis of potential rewards and costs.

• Testing:  Evaluates the functionality of an application, system or solution to ensure that requirements have been met and defects have been identified. Applies an understanding of end user requirements and usage in the end-to-end system to produce a quality product.

• Industry Knowledge:  Demonstrates an understanding of the Firm's position in the industry, including its complex structure and competitive advantage in the marketplace. Monitors industry trends and changes and recognizes their relevancy and implications.

• Technical Communication and Documentation:  Documents and communicates technical processes and procedures in area of specialty to stakeholders. Adapts the level of detail and specificity based on the needs of the intended audience.

• Vendor Management:  Manages and coordinates with external vendors. Researches and identifies new vendors as needed and monitors performance.

• Relationship Management:  Builds and maintains effective partnerships with internal clients and end users by advising on their needs and options, advocating for their business within the Technology Solutions department and managing expectations appropriately.

• Project / Program Management:  Manages Technology Solutions project elements considering conflicting priorities, interdependencies, business objectives, communications and available resources.

• Innovative Mindset:  Leverages an agile and creative mindset to drive innovative value creation, continuous process improvement and proactive learning through new technology, processes and people.

Compensation and Benefits

For Illinois and New York Only: It is expected that the base salary range for this position will be $115,000 to $180,000. Actual salaries may vary based on factors such as skills, experiences and qualifications for the role. The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements and discretionary awards in addition to a full range of medical, financial and / or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits such as vacation, sick time and parental leave) dependent on the position offered. Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment. If hired, the employee will be in an ‘at-will position’ and the Firm reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation program) at any time including for reasons related to individual performance, Firm or individual department / team performance and market factors.

Golub Capital is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Due to the highly regulated nature of Golub Capital’s business and because of the sensitivity of the information that all personnel have access to, Golub Capital performs extensive and thorough pre-hire screens to ensure that its personnel act with expected levels of integrity, professionalism and personal responsibility.

Please review Golub Capital’s US Job Applicant privacy notice and, for California residents, the California Applicant privacy notice for information on how your personal data is collected, processed and stored.