AI Architect

Toast is seeking an experienced AI Architect to spearhead the design and implementation of AI infrastructure for our People Products division. This pivotal role involves defining the technical strategy for the entire People Products ecosystem, leveraging deep technical expertise and strategic foresight. You will be instrumental in crafting the AI architecture for our People team, employing diverse frameworks and deployment models to shape and execute an effective AI strategy.

Join our People and Places team, where we aim to make the employee experience a significant differentiator that attracts top talent to Toast and fosters employee retention. Our People Products team is focused on enhancing this ambition by developing AI-powered conversational self-service solutions that deliver personalized employee experiences and insights directly within the workflow. These solutions will be cloud-based, scalable, integrated, and compliant.

In this high-impact position, you will be the driving force behind translating employee needs into scalable and effective AI solutions. Your focus will be on optimizing AI technology integrations to boost operational efficiency, enhance productivity, and foster innovation, all while upholding the highest ethical standards. You'll be part of a team redefining how a mission-driven company operates and scales its most valuable asset: its people.

As an AI Architect, you will serve as the lead technical planner and decision-maker, playing a crucial role in the development of our AI solutions. Your responsibilities will encompass not only high-level design but also active participation in the engineering lifecycle, including building, prototyping, and validating core AI components. This role demands hands-on development to establish technical standards and construct foundational systems that accelerate delivery.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Planning: Collaborate with Product Management to define and articulate comprehensive AI technical strategies and roadmaps, ensuring alignment with company objectives.
• Systems Architecture: Design end-to-end AI systems, including data pipelines, model training and deployment infrastructure, and APIs, prioritizing scalability, security, high availability, fault tolerance, and operational efficiency.
• Platform-First Mindset: Develop core AI services and infrastructure as a reusable platform, empowering engineering and data science teams to rapidly build and deploy new AI-powered features.
• Enterprise & Ecosystem Architecture: Lead the integration of AI tools with existing enterprise systems (e.g., HR platforms, intranet, collaboration tools) and provide architectural guidance for the broader People Products ecosystem, ensuring cohesive platform integration.
• Requirements Translation: Convert complex business requirements and stakeholder goals into clear, actionable technical specifications.
• Technology Evaluation: Research and evaluate optimal tools, platforms, and frameworks, considering performance, cost, and long-term compatibility.
• Performance Optimization: Establish and manage processes for continuous monitoring and optimization of AI systems to improve accuracy, performance, and cost-effectiveness.
• Ethical AI & Governance: Champion and enforce ethical AI principles, ensuring solutions are fair, transparent, and protect employee data privacy in accordance with compliance standards. Collaborate with security and risk leaders to mitigate potential AI deployment risks.
• Technical Project Leadership: Oversee the technical execution of AI projects from inception to completion, ensuring alignment with architecture and roadmap, and coordinating with cross-functional teams.
• Technical Leadership: Mentor and provide technical guidance to AI professionals, fostering a creative and collaborative team environment.
• MLOps Standardization: Define and promote best practices for the MLOps lifecycle, including version control, automated testing, and reproducible deployment pipelines.
• Stakeholder Communication: Effectively communicate complex AI concepts, architectural decisions, risks, and opportunities to technical and non-technical stakeholders and senior leadership.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with data scientists, software engineers, designers, and product managers to co-develop innovative AI solutions.
• Continuous Research: Maintain expert-level knowledge of emerging AI/ML trends and research to identify and capitalize on new opportunities.

Required Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, IT, Software Engineering, or a related technical field. A PhD is a plus.
• Experience: Minimum 10 years of demonstrable experience designing, building, and leading complex technical projects with deep specialization in AI/ML from conception to production.
• Technical Acumen: Expert understanding of fundamental computer science concepts, including data structures, machine learning algorithms, deep learning frameworks, statistics, and advanced data analysis.
• Professional Background: Prior experience in roles such as AI Engineer, Software Engineer, Cloud Engineer, or Data Scientist is highly valued.
• Cloud Proficiency: Deep familiarity with at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure) and its associated AI/ML services and infrastructure.
• Leadership: Proven ability to lead, mentor, and manage cross-functional teams, driving AI initiatives and influencing senior leadership.
• Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with diverse stakeholders and present complex findings.
• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with a proven capacity for addressing ambiguous challenges and considering long-term strategic implications.
• Business Acumen: Demonstrated ability to translate high-level business objectives into robust, scalable technical architectures.
• Continuous Learning: A strong commitment to continuous professional development and staying abreast of the evolving AI landscape.
• Attention to Detail: Meticulous attention to detail concerning system reliability, security, and data governance.

Nice-to-Haves:

• Generative AI Specialization: Hands-on experience with Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and agentic AI systems.
• Big Data Expertise: Familiarity with big data processing tools such as Hadoop, Spark, and Kafka.
• Platforms: Experience building internal developer platforms, SDKs, or tools for engineering and data science audiences.
• ML Operations (MLOps): Deep knowledge of ML and deep learning workflow and pipeline architectures, and practical application of MLOps principles.
• Software Engineering: Robust background in software engineering and DevOps, emphasizing clean, testable, and maintainable code.
• Methodologies: Familiarity with Agile software development practices and microservices architecture.
• Specialization: Experience in niche domains like computer vision, reinforcement learning, or robotics.

AI at Toast: We embrace a culture of continuous learning and innovation, utilizing AI tools to build for our customers faster, more independently, and with higher quality across all disciplines. We are looking for individuals who thrive on change and are passionate about leveraging AI to drive real value.

Total Rewards Philosophy: Toast offers competitive compensation and benefits programs designed to attract, retain, and motivate top talent, supporting a healthy lifestyle and flexibility to meet evolving needs. Learn more at https://careers.toasttab.com/toast-benefits.

AI in Hiring: Toast uses AI tools to support recruiters and interviewers with tasks like note-taking and summarization, allowing them to focus fully on candidates. All hiring decisions are made by people.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: We are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that embraces diversity, authenticity, respect, and humility, creating equitable opportunities for all.

We Thrive Together: We operate with a hybrid work model that balances in-person collaboration with individual needs, aiming to build a strong culture of connection as we empower the restaurant community. Learn more at https://careers.toasttab.com/locations-toast.

Toast is committed to providing a accessible and inclusive hiring process. If you require an accommodation, please contact candidateaccommodations@toasttab.com.

For roles in the United States, it is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.