AI Architect

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Job Description

About Bow Valley College

For 60 years, Calgary’s college has grown to prepare 14,000 students annually for meaningful careers in health care, social services, business, technology, and creative industries. Every program has a Work Integrated Learning requirement, ensuring students contribute to the workplace before they graduate. With a strong focus on advanced simulation training and Alberta’s evolving needs, Bow Valley College’s new Health Care Centre of Excellence is working to expand space and programs, aimed at graduating four-times as many health professionals annually by 2036. Proudly recognized as one of Canada’s Top 50 Research Colleges, we combine innovative learning with hands-on experience. Home to Alberta’s only major e-sports arena and a state-of-the-art digital production hub. Learn more about the opportunities Bow Valley College creates for students, Calgary, and Alberta at bowvalleycollege.ca.

 

Position Summary

The AI Architect is a hands-on technology leader responsible for accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence across Bow Valley College. Working within Information Technology Services (ITS), this role establishes and evolves the technical foundations, platforms, and standards that enable secure, scalable, and impactful AI solutions.

The AI Architect partners closely with business units to identify, prioritize, and deliver AI opportunities while directly contributing to the design, development, and implementation of AI-enabled services and products. As a key bridge between strategy and execution, the role helps create and manage a sustainable pipeline of AI initiatives that drive institutional value.

About Bow Valley College

For 60 years, Calgary’s college has grown to prepare 14,000 students annually for meaningful careers in health care, social services, business, technology, and creative industries. Every program has a Work Integrated Learning requirement, ensuring students contribute to the workplace before they graduate. With a strong focus on advanced simulation training and Alberta’s evolving needs, Bow Valley College’s new Health Care Centre of Excellence is working to expand space and programs, aimed at graduating four-times as many health professionals annually by 2036. Proudly recognized as one of Canada’s Top 50 Research Colleges, we combine innovative learning with hands-on experience. Home to Alberta’s only major e-sports arena and a state-of-the-art digital production hub. Learn more about the opportunities Bow Valley College creates for students, Calgary, and Alberta at bowvalleycollege.ca.

 

Position Summary

The AI Architect is a hands-on technology leader responsible for accelerating the adoption and effective use of artificial intelligence across Bow Valley College. Working within Information Technology Services (ITS), the AI Architect establishes and evolves the technical foundations, platforms, standards, and practices required to enable secure, scalable, sustainable, and impactful AI solutions. The position plays a key role in shaping the College’s AI technology landscape while ensuring solutions align with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, privacy, governance, and operational requirements.

The AI Architect works closely with business units, academic departments, ITS teams, and institutional leaders to identify, assess, prioritize, and deliver AI opportunities. The role combines strategic thinking with hands-on technical expertise and directly contributes to the design, development, integration, and implementation of AI-enabled services and products. As an important bridge between strategy and execution, the AI Architect helps establish and manage a sustainable pipeline of AI initiatives that generate measurable value for students, employees, and the institution.

AI Platform Architecture & Enablement

The AI Architect establishes and maintains the College’s AI solution architecture, technical standards, and operational framework to support secure, scalable, sustainable, and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence. The role designs and implements foundational AI platform capabilities, including model access, orchestration, integrations, observability, and lifecycle management. The AI Architect defines and maintains architectural patterns, reference implementations, reusable components, and development standards that support the consistent and efficient delivery of AI solutions across the College.

The AI Architect evaluates emerging AI technologies, platforms, tools, and services and provides recommendations regarding their adoption based on institutional priorities, enterprise architecture standards, technical feasibility, and potential value. The role works collaboratively with cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and application teams to ensure AI solutions are reliable, secure, integrated, and appropriately governed within the College’s broader technology ecosystem. The AI Architect also establishes monitoring, performance, and operational practices that support the effective management, optimization, and continuous improvement of AI services.

AI Solution Delivery & Innovation

The AI Architect leads the technical design and development of AI solutions that improve outcomes for students, employees, and the institution. The role partners with ITS teams and business units to translate business requirements into practical AI use cases, solution architectures, implementation plans, and technical approaches. Working closely with the Cybersecurity & Compliance team, the AI Architect translates governance, privacy, security, and audit requirements into practical governance and control-plane structures that support responsible and compliant AI solution delivery.

The AI Architect develops prototypes, proofs of concept, and minimum viable products (MVPs) to test technical feasibility, validate business value, and inform decisions regarding broader implementation. The role designs and governs integrations between AI agents, enterprise systems, APIs, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, while identifying opportunities to leverage existing enterprise systems, data assets, and technology platforms to accelerate solution delivery. The AI Architect provides technical guidance to project teams, helps resolve complex technical challenges, and ensures AI initiatives adhere to established architectural, security, governance, and operational standards. The role also establishes approaches for measuring and communicating the outcomes, effectiveness, and value realized through AI implementations.

Business Engagement & AI Opportunity Management

The AI Architect establishes and manages a College-wide AI opportunity intake and prioritization process that aligns emerging demand with institutional objectives, strategic priorities, available resources, and organizational capacity. The role collaborates with business leaders, academic departments, and operational units to identify high-value AI opportunities and emerging needs, and assesses potential initiatives based on feasibility, anticipated value, risk, complexity, resource requirements, and alignment with institutional priorities.

The AI Architect maintains a portfolio and roadmap of AI opportunities, initiatives, and planned capabilities to support coordinated and strategic investment in AI across the College. The role promotes awareness of AI capabilities, practical applications, and leading practices, helping stakeholders identify realistic, responsible, and impactful opportunities to use AI.

As a trusted advisor, the AI Architect provides business leaders and stakeholders with informed guidance regarding AI technologies, emerging trends, opportunities, risks, and implementation approaches.

AI Capability Development & Community Leadership

The AI Architect fosters a culture of innovation, responsible experimentation, and continuous learning by enabling staff and teams to effectively and appropriately leverage AI technologies. The role develops and maintains reusable frameworks, templates, playbooks, standards, and implementation guides that accelerate AI adoption and promote consistency across the College. The AI Architect builds and sustains relationships with vendors, technology partners, peer institutions, and industry communities to identify emerging technologies, leading practices, and opportunities for collaboration.

The AI Architect contributes technical expertise to AI-related committees, working groups, governance structures, and institutional initiatives as required. The role maintains current knowledge of advances in artificial intelligence and communicates relevant trends, opportunities, risks, and implications to College leadership and stakeholders. Through this work, the AI Architect helps position Bow Valley College to adopt AI technologies thoughtfully, responsibly, and in ways that support the College’s strategic priorities and student, employee, and institutional outcomes.

Minimum Qualifications

The successful candidate will have a diploma in Computer Science or an equivalent discipline, along with a minimum of 10 years of experience working as an IT Analyst in a business, technical, solutions, or support capacity. The candidate will also have a minimum of seven years of experience working in a software-related discipline and at least five years of experience participating in IT-focused projects. A minimum of two years of experience applying Enterprise Architecture principles is required.

The successful candidate will have extensive experience working with cloud-based AI services and platforms, including Microsoft Azure AI, Microsoft Copilot technologies, and related enterprise AI ecosystems. The candidate will demonstrate strong skills in requirements gathering and documentation, as well as strong interpersonal and communication skills and a demonstrated commitment to customer service. An equivalent combination of directly related education and experience may be considered.

Preferred Qualifications

Preference will be given to candidates with five or more years of experience working as a senior resource on major business and IT transformation initiatives. Experience with modern Microsoft products and technologies, including Microsoft 365 collaboration strategies and migrations, will be considered an asset.

The ideal candidate will have experience designing enterprise AI architectures that incorporate large language models (LLMs), AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), vector databases, orchestration platforms, and enterprise integrations. Experience establishing AI architectural standards, reference architectures, technical governance practices, and frameworks for responsible AI adoption will also be considered an asset.

Experience identifying, prioritizing, and governing a portfolio of AI use cases and initiatives will be highly valued. The successful candidate will demonstrate proven data analysis skills, knowledge of both Waterfall and Agile/iterative IT solution development methodologies, and advanced problem-solving capabilities. Strong analytical, communication, collaboration, and relationship-building skills will be important to success in this role.

If your education was received internationally, you will be required to provide an international education assessment through IQAS, WES, or one of the other nationally designated organizations upon hire.

Closing Date: October 16, 2026

This opening is a continuous (exempt position. Please note that all successful candidates will be required to provide copies of government-issued identification and proof of educational qualifications upon hire and may be required to provide an enhanced police information check.

Union :

Exempt

Diversity and Inclusion Commitment
Bow Valley College is strongly committed to fostering diversity and inclusion within our community. We welcome applications from qualified candidates who would contribute to the further diversification of our employees including, but not limited to, visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity.