Manager Cloud Architect - Paris

Job Presentation:

Designing an AI architecture means committing a company for several years: data placement, access management, how an agent goes into production under the watchful eye of security teams. These structuring choices, you build them with our clients.

Everything else comprises the client's functional and technical ambitions, its regulatory framework, its budget, the skills it can genuinely mobilize internally, the governance it wants to establish, and an ecosystem of publishers that revolves around it. Your role is to find the balance point between these forces, to get it accepted, and then to readjust it as soon as one of them shifts.

Your starting point is not technology, but business ambition. You translate it into a data or agent platform designed to integrate with the existing information system, with its history, its constraints, and its teams. Your role does not stop at the validation of the target schema: you support the delivery teams up to production deployment.

For example, at one of our clients, each new agent now relies on a common platform that natively manages access rights, monitoring, and costs. Each use case thus builds upon the foundations laid for previous ones.

This position is for you if you enjoy embracing a system as a whole, making decisions that commit and explaining their reasons.

Artefact is the trusted partner of the world's largest companies for deploying AI: 3,000 AI makers in over 30 countries, more than 1,000 clients. In France, you will join the Engineering department (approximately 300 people, under the responsibility of the CTO), within the AI Architect chapter.

Activities and Responsibilities:

On a project, you will work closely with AI Applied Engineers, who build and run what you design, and with AI Product Managers, who champion the product with the client.

On the client side, two audiences need to be convinced: business departments, with whom you define the target, and IT, security, network, and operations teams, without whose buy-in nothing goes into production. An architecture they have not validated does not go beyond the document stage. You will also be the point of contact for purchasing, compliance, and publishers who wish to position themselves.

Within the chapter, you will review the designs of your peers, contribute to the growth of the architects and engineering profiles around you, and share what works. You will also work with our technology partners and other Artefact teams.

Your Responsibilities:

• Translate the client's objectives, constraints, and deadlines into an architecture that both business and IT understand, and defend your choices before them.
• Design data and agent platforms, on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid.
• Break down technical scopes based on how the client's teams are organized.
• Arbitrate between options by weighing their business value, total cost, compliance, vendor dependency, and the client's ability to sustain them.
• Help the client evaluate and benchmark vendors, without bias.
• Prepare commercial proposals: frame the solution, cost it, and build the delivery roadmap.
• Maintain direction during delivery: review designs, make arbitration decisions, and readjust the target when the client's context changes.
• Maintain the chapter's reference patterns and best practices, and closely follow developments in AI, cloud, and data.

Profile Sought:

We are looking for someone who thinks like a consultant and reasons like an engineer. Architects who succeed with us are, among others, technical profiles who have experience in consulting, pre-sales engineers, FDEs, or individuals with experience as CTOs.

The Essentials:

1. You have designed a data or AI architecture that has been put into production, and you can explain why you ruled out other options, technical or otherwise.
2. You have previously recommended a technically less appealing option because it better suited the client's budget, skills, governance, or regulations.
3. You are proficient in at least one major cloud (Google Cloud, Azure, or AWS) as well as the fundamentals of security and networking: IAM, secrets management, network architecture.
4. You have written architecture documents (HLD and LLD) that have served as a basis for a delivery team.
5. You have coded for a significant portion of your career. Today, you can read code, challenge a design, and state what is required of a system in production: CI/CD, monitoring, incident management.
6. You have previously framed and costed a solution, for example for a commercial proposal or a project plan.
7. You have defended an architecture before both business management or a steering committee, and before security and operations teams, linking business value, technical choices, and the delivery plan.

A Plus, Not a Prerequisite:

• Agent platform architecture: RAG, multi-agent orchestration, layer-by-layer technology selection.
• Data governance at the scale of a large enterprise: data mesh, access management.
• On-premise, hybrid, or sovereign platforms, based on open-source technologies or Kubernetes.
• Run standards: SLA, DR and BC plans.
• Experience as a CTO, tech lead, or in a client-facing role.
• A cloud architecture certification.
• Regular practice of coding agents.

This position is probably not for you if your expertise is focused on a single platform or vendor and you wish to continue deepening it. Nor if building and writing code is what excites you the most: the AI Applied Engineer role would be a better fit.

No need to tick all the boxes to apply: if you have the essential requirements and the desire to learn the rest, let's talk.

Recruitment Process:

• HR Interview (30-45 min): Discussion about your background, your managerial skills, and cultural fit with a Talent Acquisition Specialist.
• Architecture Case (60 min): Architecture session with an AI Architect based in France on a case derived from a real mission.
• US / Manager Interview (60 min): Discussion with a Director / Partner to assess managerial, operational, and client-facing fit.

Compensation: Package: €75,000 to €85,000 gross annual (fixed) + €8,000 variable, depending on experience and seniority.

Company Presentation

Artefact is a consulting firm specializing in data and artificial intelligence, which assists companies in transforming these technologies into concrete and measurable business impact.

At the intersection of consulting, data, and technology, our 2,500 employees in 27 countries pool their expertise to design, develop, and deploy solutions that address our clients' transformation challenges.

Want to know more? Discover Artefact, our expertise, and our culture: https://www.artefact.com

At Artefact, we are convinced that the diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives enriches our teams. We are committed to providing an inclusive environment and equitable opportunities, where everyone can grow and fully express their potential. Our recruitments are based on skills, potential, and fit with the role.