Solutions Architect

Solutions Architect (Agentic AI Chat Platform)

Location: Calgary, Canada (Remote-Friendly)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Robots & Pencils is seeking a Solutions Architect to lead the technical design and system architecture for an AI-powered chat platform that helps students get instant, intuitive answers across a wide range of topics.

Our client currently operates an existing chatbot that is experiencing critical issues. This project will rebuild and modernize the chat experience, leveraging large language model (LLM) and agentic AI capabilities to deliver natural, conversational interactions that meet modern user expectations. You'll play a pivotal role in defining the architecture, integrations, and AI orchestration strategy for this next-generation chat system, ensuring it achieves scalability, reliability, and exceptional user experience.

As a senior member of the engineering and architecture team, you'll take ownership of the end-to-end solution design—from conceptual architecture and technology selection to integration strategy, system security, and production readiness. You'll collaborate closely with AI engineers, designers, and product leaders to bring an intelligent, human-like conversational platform to life.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Design Leadership

• Define the end-to-end technical architecture for an LLM-powered, agentic AI chat experience.

• Assess the client's existing chatbot systems, identify technical debt, and define a clear modernization path.

• Design scalable, modular backend systems, ensuring flexibility for future AI integrations.

• Develop architecture diagrams, data flow designs, and technical documentation.

• Partner with AI engineers to integrate LLMs, vector databases, and agentic orchestration frameworks.

• Define and maintain standards for security, compliance, performance, and observability.

Technical Strategy & Innovation

• Evaluate and recommend tools, frameworks, and APIs that support agentic AI, RAG pipelines, and contextual memory.

• Drive innovation through proof-of-concepts, technical spikes, and model integration experiments.

• Stay current on emerging LLM and AI orchestration trends to inform architectural evolution.

• Translate business and user requirements into scalable, production-ready technical designs.

Collaboration & Execution

• Work closely with product, design, and AI engineering teams to align architecture with user experience goals.

• Partner with DevOps teams to define deployment pipelines, observability strategies, and cloud infrastructure.

• Participate in sprint planning and backlog reviews to ensure technical feasibility and alignment.

• Provide mentorship and guidance to developers on best practices for system design, integration, and maintainability.

Process & Governance

• Champion architectural governance, enforcing consistent design patterns and system quality standards.

• Collaborate on CI/CD processes, ensuring smooth integration of AI components and data services.

• Lead architecture reviews, technical design sessions, and knowledge-sharing sessions.

• Contribute to long-term platform strategy, emphasizing extensibility and performance at scale.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in software or solutions architecture, with proven experience in AI or data-driven platforms.

• Strong knowledge of LLM systems, RAG architectures, vector databases, and agentic AI workflows.

• Proficiency with AI frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, Semantic Kernel, or similar.

• Hands-on experience designing microservices or serverless architectures on AWS, GCP, or Azure.

• Strong background in API design, system integration, and cloud infrastructure.

• Experience implementing secure, scalable, and highly available distributed systems.

• Excellent communication and documentation skills with cross-functional teams.

• Upper-Intermediate English proficiency (written and spoken) for effective collaboration.

Nice to Have

• Experience architecting AI-powered or conversational systems in production.

• Familiarity with agentic frameworks, orchestration tools, and autonomous reasoning pipelines.

• Experience in education technology or student-facing applications.

• Knowledge of observability and monitoring platforms (Datadog, Sentry, Prometheus).

• Contributions to open-source AI tools or architecture frameworks.

• Strong understanding of data security, privacy, and compliance within AI contexts.

Personal Competencies

• Systems Thinking – Designs architectures that balance performance, scalability, and maintainability.

• Technical Leadership – Provides guidance and clarity to engineers and stakeholders alike.

• Innovation – Explores cutting-edge AI technologies to evolve system capabilities.

• Collaboration – Builds trust and alignment across technical and non-technical teams.

• Strategic Mindset – Aligns architectural direction with business goals and user outcomes.

• Adaptability – Thrives in dynamic environments leveraging emerging AI technologies.

• Quality Focus – Ensures technical excellence and long-term sustainability in every design.