Lead Architect (AI)

Who Are We?

Taking care of our customers, our communities and each other. That’s the Travelers Promise. By honoring this commitment, we have maintained our reputation as one of the best property casualty insurers in the industry for over 170 years. Join us to discover a culture that is rooted in innovation and thrives on collaboration. Imagine loving what you do and where you do it.

Job Category

Technology

Compensation Overview

The annual base salary range provided for this position is a nationwide market range and represents a broad range of salaries for this role across the country. The actual salary for this position will be determined by a number of factors, including the scope, complexity and location of the role; the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate; and other conditions of employment. As part of our comprehensive compensation and benefits program, employees are also eligible for performance-based cash incentive awards.

Salary Range

$169,400.00 - $279,600.00

Target Openings

1

What Is the Opportunity?

As a member of AI and Emerging Technology Architecture, you'll be joining a strategic and collaborative team that is passionate about transforming our business and technology capabilities and paving the way for best-in-class solutions.
As a Lead Architect, you will collaborate with senior Technology and Business leaders and apply your deep technical proficiency and visionary thinking to architect AI systems that drive business value while maintaining ethical standards.

What Will You Do?

• Scope:
• Define and maintain the architectural principles, best practices, standards, and reference architectures for Travelers' AI platforms and AI-enabled products.·      
• Guide strategic technology decisions involving AI platforms, cloud providers, model hosting strategies, vector databases, orchestration frameworks, AI infrastructure, build-versus-buy evaluations, and platform investments.·      
• Lead architecture reviews for major AI initiatives and provide guidance on system design, scalability, resiliency, interoperability, security, compliance, and cost optimization.·      
• Establish enterprise AI integration patterns, AI architecture standards, governance frameworks, and operational processes that ensure consistency across AI and non-AI systems.·      
• Apply your hands-on expertise in AI/ML, Generative AI, and Agentic AI systems — including autonomous agent design, multi-agent orchestration frameworks, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and Agent2Agent integration — to architect scalable, production-grade AI solutions across the enterprise·      
• Provide consulting expertise to division and domain architects, driving architecture alignment across lines of business and serving as a champion for establishing an enterprise AI solutions architecture practice·      
• Align AI platform capabilities to the strategic needs of business groups — spanning LLM strategy, selection and routing, RAG pipelines, memory systems, and tool/function-calling patterns — while promoting reusability, interoperability, and responsible AI design·      
• Help establish AI standards, best practices, governance, risk, and control processes that ensure safe, compliant, and sustainable AI deployments, informed by frameworks such as the EU AI Act, GDPR, NAIC, and NIST AI RMF, and grounded in strong AI ethics and bias mitigation principles·      
• Demonstrate a strong passion for tracking and communicating the evolving AI platform roadmap — spanning foundation models, agentic frameworks, and emerging autonomous systems — while surfacing competitive landscape insights and highlighting opportunities and challenges that complement enterprise initiatives·      
• Bring strong collaboration, communication, and mentoring skills to bridge complex AI concepts for non-technical stakeholders, build consensus across diverse teams, and foster a knowledge-sharing culture within the architecture community

What Will Our Ideal Candidate Have?

• Technical Expertise & Education:
• Bachelor’s degree in technology-related field or equivalent, with 8 to 10 years of architecture experience.
• Advanced level architecture and recent hands-on strong engineering experience with modern technologies.
• Successful execution of complex, large scale technology strategies.
• Proven track record defining scalable, production-grade AI systems, including distributed and parallel processing architectures

• Hands-on expertise in AI/ML development and deployment, with deep knowledge of ML algorithms, neural network architectures, and optimization techniques

• Strong architecture leadership and experience

• Strong mathematical foundation in linear algebra, statistics, and probability theory, supporting rigorous model design and evaluation

• Experience with MLOps & AI Ops practices and CI/CD pipelines for AI/ML systems

• Hands-on experience with agentic coding tools such as Claude Enterprise/CLI/Code, OpenAI Codex, and GitHub Copilot

• Hands-on experience with Generative AI foundation — including transformer architectures, LLMs, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and RLHF

• Experience with multimodal AI systems

• Experience building autonomous AI systems with planning and reasoning capabilities, including reinforcement learning and decision-making frameworks

• Hands-on experience with agentic patterns — tool use, function calling, API integration, memory systems, RAG, vector databases, and multi-agentic orchestration  

• Hands-on or working experience with agent orchestration frameworks/ADKs/SDKs and protocols including MCP and Agent2Agent

• Deep experience with cloud AI services including AWS Bedrock AgentCore (optional: Azure Foundry/Agent 365, or GCP/Gemini AI), including SaaS AI and agentic capabilities

• Knowledge of AI ethics, bias mitigation, responsible AI practices, and regulatory frameworks (EU AI Act, GDPR)

• Experience with AI governance frameworks and model risk management. 
• Leadership & Influence:
• Advanced leadership skills with the ability to leverage cross-functional networks to collaborate with architecture and engineering leaders on problem-solving, build company-wide credibility, prioritize critical architectural challenges, and strengthen the Architecture organization through knowledge sharing, mentoring, and creating development opportunities for team members.
• Strategic & Business Acumen:
• Extensive experience working in an agile operational model.
• Advanced experience supporting transformational change. Able to adjust plans, priorities and strategies in response to changing circumstances.
• Experience developing technology target states and roadmaps that align to short- and long-term business goals.
• Insurance technology experience preferred.
• Strong understanding of value creation and business capability models.
• Strong knowledge of the insurance industry.
• Advanced experience identifying and analyzing current/future problems and opportunities, evaluating information to understand root causes, and exploring alternative solutions for effective decision-making.
• Proven ability to work collaboratively with colleagues to achieve mutually responsible results.
• Extensive experience exercising sound judgment, making decisions and committing to a position.
• Advanced and effective verbal, written and listening communication skills.

What is a Must Have?

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, related STEM field, or its equivalent in education and/or work experience.
• 7 additional years of architecture/software engineering experience.
• 2 years of technical leadership experience.

What Is in It for You?

• Health Insurance: Employees and their eligible family members – including spouses, domestic partners, and children – are eligible for coverage from the first day of employment.
• Retirement: Travelers matches your 401(k) contributions dollar-for-dollar up to your first 5% of eligible pay, subject to an annual maximum. If you have student loan debt, you can enroll in the Paying it Forward Savings Program. When you make a payment toward your student loan, Travelers will make an annual contribution into your 401(k) account. You are also eligible for a Pension Plan that is 100% funded by Travelers.
• Paid Time Off: Start your career at Travelers with a minimum of 20 days Paid Time Off annually, plus nine paid company Holidays.
• Wellness Program: The Travelers wellness program is comprised of tools, discounts and resources that empower you to achieve your wellness goals and caregiving needs. In addition, our mental health program provides access to free professional counseling services, health coaching and other resources to support your daily life needs.
• Volunteer Encouragement: We have a deep commitment to the communities we serve and encourage our employees to get involved. Travelers has a Matching Gift and Volunteer Rewards program that enables you to give back to the charity of your choice.

Employment Practices

Travelers is an equal opportunity employer. We value the unique abilities and talents each individual brings to our organization and recognize that we benefit in numerous ways from our differences. 

In accordance with local law, candidates seeking employment in Colorado are not required to disclose dates of attendance at or graduation from educational institutions.

If you are a candidate and have specific questions regarding the physical requirements of this role, please send us an email so we may assist you.

Travelers reserves the right to fill this position at a level above or below the level included in this posting.

To learn more about our comprehensive benefit programs please visit http://careers.travelers.com/life-at-travelers/benefits/.