Senior AI Architect

Company & Position Overview:

J.B. Poindexter & Co., Inc. (JBPCO) is a privately held, diversified manufacturing company forecasting over $2.5B in annual revenues and employing over 8,000 team members. The six operating subsidiaries, covering 60 locations, are engaged in the production of commercial truck bodies, step-vans, utility trucks, ambulances, electric and alternative fuel vehicles, and expandable foam plastic packaging. For more information, visit https://www.jbpoindexter.com.

The Senior AI Architect designs and implements the delivery of enterprise AI solutions that improve business processes, reduce manual work, strengthen decision-making, and create measurable business value.

This role works within Information Technology and closely with the Office of AI, business leaders, technical teams, and vendors, The Senior AI Architect translates the AI strategy, platform direction, and governance standards established by the Senior Director of AI into scalable technical designs and production-ready solutions.

The position balances architecture leadership with hands-on technical work. The individual in this role designs solutions develops prototypes, writes code, evaluates technical approaches, and partners on implementations. Initial priorities will focus on manufacturing, supply chain, operations, sales, and customer-facing processes, followed by corporate functions. This role reports directly to the Chief Information Officer.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

AI Solution Architecture

• Design scalable AI architectures that align with the enterprise AI strategy, approved platforms, and technical standards.
• Designs enterprise AI solutions aligned with business priorities and the direction established by the Office of AI.
• Translates business requirements into solution designs, technical specifications, integration requirements, and implementation plans.
• Evaluates architecture options and recommends solutions based on business value, feasibility, security, scalability, cost, and long-term support needs.
• Provides architecture guidance and technical reviews throughout the solution lifecycle.

Prototyping and Technical Development

• Builds prototypes and proofs of concept to test AI use cases, technical assumptions, and potential business value. Moves prototypes and pilots into secure, reliable, and scalable production solutions.
• Writes and reviews code for selected AI solutions, integrations, automation workflows, and data-processing components.
• Applies generative AI, predictive analytics, retrieval-augmented generation, and multi-agent approaches where appropriate for the business needs.
• Documents prototypes, technical decisions, reusable components, and lessons learned.
• Establishes appropriate testing, evaluation, monitoring, logging, auditability, and performance requirements.

Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Operational Solutions

• Designs AI solutions that improve manufacturing processes, supply planning, material availability, supplier performance, quality, and operational decision-making.
• Develops predictive and intelligence capabilities that help identify shortages, production risks, process issues, and planning constraints.
• Partners with operational leaders and technical teams to embed AI into existing workflows and systems.
• Ensures solutions include appropriate validation, user review, and human approval for important operational decisions.

Sales and Customer-Facing Solutions

• Designs AI-enabled solutions that improve sales processes, customer service, response speed, information access, and decision support.
• Identifies opportunities to automate repetitive work, improve workflow accuracy, and provide employees with timely, relevant information.
• Partners with commercial and customer-facing teams to convert business needs into practical and measurable AI use cases.
• Drives adoption by ensuring solutions are usable, reliable, and integrated into established business processes.

Enterprise Integration and Platform Alignment

• Designs integrations between AI solutions and enterprise applications, data platforms, business systems, and workflow tools.
• Develops solutions within the platform direction and technical standards established by the Office of AI.
• Promotes the use of reusable architecture patterns, shared services, common components, and approved development approaches.
• Works with Information Technology teams to address infrastructure, identity, access, data, security, and support requirements.

Technical Collaboration and Delivery Support

• Provides technical direction and coaching to developers, vendors, and implementation partners without direct supervisory responsibility.
• Partners with the Senior Director of AI and the Office of AI to ensure solutions align with enterprise strategy, governance, and platform decisions.
• Collaborates with business owners, data teams, cybersecurity, application teams, and infrastructure teams throughout delivery.
• Explains technical decisions, tradeoffs, dependencies, and risks in clear business language.

Business Value and Continuous Improvement

• Works with business owners to define success measures before solutions are developed.
• Evaluates results such as cycle-time reduction, employee effort saved, improved accuracy, adoption, risk reduction, and financial impact.
• Recommends whether solutions should be expanded, redesigned, reused, or discontinued based on results.
• Monitors developments in AI technologies and recommend practical applications aligned with enterprise priorities.

Qualifications and Skills:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, data science, information systems, or a related field.
• A minimum of five years of relevant experience designing and delivering artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, or related enterprise technology solutions.
• Experience designing enterprise AI architectures and translating business requirements into technical solutions and knowledge of responsible AI, data privacy, cybersecurity, model risk, and regulatory considerations.
• Hands-on experience developing prototypes and production solutions using Python and SQL.
• Experience with generative AI, retrieval-augmented generation, predictive analytics, and AI assistants or multi-agent systems.
• Experience working with cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services.
• Experience with enterprise data and analytics platforms, such as Databricks or Microsoft Fabric.
• Knowledge of enterprise integration, application programming interfaces, data pipelines, identity, access management, and cloud architecture.
• Experience with the practices for deploying, monitoring, maintaining, and improving AI and machine-learning solutions.
• Ability to evaluate technical options and explain architecture decisions, business implications, risks, and tradeoffs clearly.
• Experience working across internal teams, shared services, vendors, and other delivery partners.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple technical priorities in a complex enterprise environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master's degree in computer science, engineering, artificial intelligence, data science, or a related field.
• Experience applying AI in manufacturing, supply chain, operations, sales, or customer service environments.

J.B. Poindexter & Co., Inc. provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

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