AI Solutions Architect - Financial Services
Posted 1 day ago by Staq.io
Negotiable
Undetermined
Undetermined
United Kingdom
Summary: Staq is seeking an AI Solutions Architect to develop a secure, cloud-native AI platform tailored for the financial services sector. The role involves overseeing architecture, workflow orchestration, policy gating, and observability to ensure reliable automation in a regulated environment. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in building distributed systems and implementing robust security measures. This position offers the opportunity to lead a significant initiative within a fast-paced, founder-led company.
Key Responsibilities:
- Design a multi-tenant, high-availability reference architecture with clear data boundaries and SLAs.
- Model durable workflows using a modern engine (e.g., Temporal/Cadence).
- Implement pre-execute gates for business rules and AI safety.
- Design approval/exception flows and lightweight console/SDKs for approvals and notifications.
- Define connectors and event pipelines while enforcing PII handling and data minimization.
- Establish end-to-end tracing/metrics and immutable logs.
- Create evaluation harnesses and monitoring strategies for MLOps.
- Implement zero-trust networking and secrets management.
- Create SDKs/templates for internal teams to add new workflows safely.
Key Skills:
- 8+ years of experience in building distributed systems/platforms.
- Production experience with workflow engines and reliability patterns.
- Experience with policy-as-code or equivalent rule enforcement.
- Solid MLOps knowledge including CI/CD for prompts/models.
- Security and compliance expertise, including OAuth2/OIDC and encryption.
- Proficiency in Go and/or Python; TypeScript is a plus.
- Experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, and GitOps.
- Familiarity with Postgres, Kafka, and observability tools like OpenTelemetry.
- Experience in fintech or regulated industries is a plus.
Salary (Rate): undetermined
City: undetermined
Country: United Kingdom
Working Arrangements: undetermined
IR35 Status: undetermined
Seniority Level: undetermined
Industry: IT
Staq is hiring an AI Solutions Architect to build a secure, cloud-native AI platform in a regulated domain. You’ll own orchestration, policy gating, HITL approvals and observability - shipping real, reliable automation.
About Staq
Staq is a leading embedded-finance platform enabling banks and financial institutions globally. We’re incubating a confidential initiative and looking for a hands-on architect to build a secure, scalable AI platform in a regulated domain.
The Role
You will own the architecture and delivery of a cloud-native AI platform: workflow orchestration, agent/runtime controls, policy gating, human-in-the-loop approvals, observability and tight integration with Staq services - designed for reliability, safety and adaptability.
Key Technical Responsibilities
- Platform architecture: Design a multi-tenant, HA reference architecture with clear data boundaries and SLAs.
- Workflow orchestration: Model durable workflows (retries, sagas, timers/signals, idempotency) using a modern engine (e.g., Temporal/Cadence).
- Policy-as-code & guardrails: Implement pre-execute gates for business rules and AI safety (e.g., OPA/Rego or equivalent), plus evals/red-teaming.
- Governance & HITL: Design approval/exception flows, RBAC/MFA, and lightweight console/SDKs for approvals and notifications.
- Data & integrations: Define connectors and event pipelines (webhooks, Kafka); enforce PII handling, encryption/KMS, consent, and data minimization.
- Observability & audit: Establish end-to-end tracing/metrics (OpenTelemetry), immutable logs, and SIEM feeds; SLOs with alerting/runbooks.
- MLOps foundations: Evaluation harnesses, prompt/model registries, canarying, drift/quality monitoring, rollback strategies.
- Security & delivery: Zero-trust networking, secrets management, signed artifacts/supply chain, IaC (Terraform) and GitOps (e.g., ArgoCD).
- Internal enablement: Create SDKs/templates that let teams add new workflows safely and quickly.
Minimum Qualifications
- 8+ years building distributed systems/platforms (2+ as principal/lead/architect).
- Production experience with workflow engines and reliability patterns.
- Demonstrated work with policy-as-code or equivalent rule enforcement.
- Shipped LLM/NLP or agentic systems with strong evaluation/guardrails.
- Solid MLOps: CI/CD for prompts/models, telemetry, rollback.
- Security & compliance depth: OAuth2/OIDC, RBAC/MFA, KMS, encryption in transit/at rest, PII handling.
Core Skills
- Languages: Go and/or Python (TypeScript for SDKs/console a plus).
- Infra: Kubernetes, containers, Terraform, GitOps (ArgoCD).
- Data: Postgres plus column/NoSQL; Kafka/eventing; caching.
- APIs: REST/GraphQL, secure webhooks, reliability patterns.
- Observability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana, SIEM.
Nice To Have
- Fintech or other regulated-industry experience (payments, ledgers, KYC/AML).
- Familiarity with model-risk governance and upcoming AI regulations.
- Sandboxing (gVisor/Firecracker), SLSA/supply-chain security, or confidential computing.
- Experience building HITL consoles or approval SDKs (web/mobile).
What We Offer
- Chance to architect a greenfield AI platform with real-world impact.
- High ownership in a fast, founder-led environment.
- Competitive comp and equity; remote-friendly.
- Professional growth and influence over technical direction.
Application Process
- Apply via LinkedIn with your CV highlighting platform/distributed-systems leadership
- Complete job application form (the link will be sent to you if you are shortlisted)
- Forward: examples of systems you’ve architected and the reliability/safety controls you implemented, a brief note on how you’d design policy-gated, HITL-approved automation in a regulated setting, and links to talks, posts, or open-source work (if any) & intro video
- Interview with our Director of People & Culture
- Interview with our CEO and/or CTO
- Offer stage
Please note, this role is open to candidates living in the EMEA region.