Principal AI Architect & Governance

Location: Carlsbad, CA, us, Remote

Company Description

Vuori is re-defining what athletic apparel looks like: built to move and sweat in but designed with a casual aesthetic to transition into everyday life. We draw inspiration from an active coastal California lifestyle; an integration of fitness, creative expression and life. Our high energy fast paced retail environment is reflected in the clothes we make. We aim to inspire others to take on all aspects of their lives with clarity, enthusiasm and purpose…while having a lot of fun along the way. We are proud to be an outlet for opportunity and for personal growth and success.

Job Description

As Principal, AI Architect and Governance, you will serve as Vuori's senior technical authority for AI platform design, enterprise architecture standards, and responsible AI. You will define how AI systems are designed, built, integrated, and governed across the organization, ensuring they are secure, compliant, scalable, reliable, and aligned with business priorities. 

This is a senior role for someone who combines deep, hands-on technical expertise with enterprise influence. You will work directly with engineers on architecture and design decisions, translate emerging AI capabilities into pragmatic enterprise patterns, and advise technology, business, security, legal, and data leaders on platform choices and risk. You will raise the quality and consistency of AI development through clear standards, reusable patterns, design reviews, and governance guardrails, without direct people-management responsibility. 

What you'll get to do:

Set direction and raise the bar 

• Shape the evolution of Vuori's enterprise AI architecture, ensuring it keeps pace with the growth of the business and the maturity of the AI ecosystem. 
• Establish reference architectures, engineering standards, and integration patterns that teams across Vuori use when building AI systems. 
• Lead technical evaluations of AI platforms, foundation models, cloud services, and tooling — recommending adoption decisions based on rigorous analysis of performance, cost, security, and fit. 
• Raise the architectural capability of engineers across Vuori through design reviews, pairing, documentation, and reusable patterns others adopt because they are good. 
• Bring clarity to complex, ambiguous problems — including calling out when a proposed AI approach is not the right solution. 
• Make build-versus-buy-versus-partner recommendations that shape the AI platform for years and communicate the rationale clearly to technical and non-technical audiences. 

Build and maintain AI governance 

• Develop and operationalize Vuori's AI governance framework, covering model risk management, data privacy, bias detection, audit trails, and regulatory compliance. 
• Establish AI engineering standards, security guardrails, testing and evaluation protocols, and responsible AI policies that apply consistently across all teams building AI systems. 
• Create governance structures that give teams a clear path to building and shipping AI responsibly — balancing speed of innovation with enterprise-grade risk management. 
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Security, and Data teams to ensure AI systems meet applicable regulations, data handling requirements, and ethical standards. 
• Implement ongoing monitoring, incident response, and continuous improvement processes for AI systems in production. 

Partner across the organization 

• Work closely with senior technology and business leaders to align AI architecture and governance with organizational priorities and investment decisions. 
• Serve as a clear, credible voice on AI architecture and risk in conversations with executive sponsors, engineering leadership, and external partners or auditors. 
• Collaborate with AI product, engineering, and data teams to ensure architectural and governance requirements are understood and built in from the start — not added after the fact. 
• Mentor engineers and technical leads through architectural guidance, design reviews, and the development of shared standards they can apply independently. 

Measure and evolve 

• Track and report on platform reliability, governance adherence, security posture, and the business impact of AI architecture investments. 
• Continuously assess the AI landscape and incorporate emerging technologies, best practices, and industry standards to keep Vuori's AI ecosystem well-positioned. 
• Use data and operational experience to refine standards, improve governance processes, and remove friction for teams building AI responsibly. 

Qualifications

Who you are:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field; advanced degree preferred. 
• 12+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, or technology architecture, including significant experience owning enterprise AI or data platform architecture at scale. 
• Demonstrated experience designing and governing AI systems in production — including LLMs, agentic systems, ML pipelines, and model serving infrastructure. 
• Deep expertise in enterprise AI governance, risk management, security, and compliance frameworks. 
• Proven ability to define technical standards, make architecture decisions, and drive adoption across large, cross-functional engineering organizations through influence rather than direct authority. 
• Experience with cloud-native architectures on Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud, and modern AI infrastructure patterns including RAG, vector databases, and orchestration frameworks. 
• Experience building and deploying with frontier AI lab models, platforms, and/or frameworks (i.e. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, etc.).
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to explain complex AI architecture and governance requirements clearly to engineering, business, and executive audiences. 
• Strong executive presence and a demonstrated ability to build alignment, challenge assumptions constructively, and influence decisions across a matrixed organization. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience with enterprise AI governance platforms, model risk management frameworks, or AI regulatory standards such as the EU AI Act or NIST AI RMF. 
• Familiarity with MLOps, model lifecycle management, AI observability, and responsible AI tooling. 
• Experience with low-code and pro-code enterprise AI platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft Copilot Studio, or Google Gemini Enterprise. 
• Background in retail, direct-to-consumer, e-commerce, or a similar consumer operating environment. 
• Demonstrated ability to establish and scale practical architecture standards and governance capabilities in high-growth organizations. 
• Active engagement with the broader AI and technology community through publications, speaking, or open-source contributions. 

Additional Information

Our investment in you:

At Vuori, we’re proud to offer the following to our employees: 

• Health Insurance 
• Savings and Retirement Plan
• Employee Assistance Program 
• Generous Vuori Discount & Industry Perks 
• Paid Time Off
• Wellness & Fitness benefits

The salary range for this role is $197,500 per year - $264,390 per year. This role is bonus eligible.

Vuori is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.