Staff/Principal Architect - AI & LLM

Location: Pleasanton, CA (Hybrid work)

Client: Critical River

Salary: $220K - $250K + Benefits

About the Role: We're hiring an exceptional Staff or Principal Architect to lead the ground-up design and build of Maverick-our next-generation, multi-tenant SaaS platform for AI-powered financial intelligence and workflow automation. This is a rare true Greenfield opportunity: architect, build, and launch a production-ready platform from scratch within 3 months. This is not a transformation or refactor project. You'll define the architecture, choose the tech stack, and make foundational decisions that will power hundreds of enterprise clients. You'll partner with our seasoned engineering team to deliver a modern, scalable, cost-efficient platform built right from day one.

What You'll Do: Foundational Architecture (40%) - Own platform architecture end-to-end, including tech stack selection, multi-tenant design, Auth systems, data architecture, and service topology. AI/LLM Architecture (20%) - Lead the intelligence layer: Lang Graph agent system, LLM integration strategy, and contextual intelligence design. Hands-On Development (25%) - Contribute high-impact code, drive engineering excellence, and accelerate execution velocity. Production Readiness (15%) - Ensure infrastructure, security, reliability, and DevOps readiness for a 3-6 month launch timeline.

Nice-to-Haves: Financial services experience, startup/rapid growth background, security/compliance expertise, and cost optimization skills.