---
title: 'Principal AI Engineering Architect at Robots and Pencils'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-ai-engineering-architect-robots-and-pencils-united-states-g0xq22zqzm6y'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-17'
---

# Principal AI Engineering Architect at Robots and Pencils

- **Company:** Robots and Pencils
- **Location:** United States
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-17
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/robotsandpencils/jobs/5373864008

## Job description

Principal AI Engineering Architect

We're looking for a Principal AI Engineering Architect to lead the design and delivery of complex, multi-domain systems spanning cloud, data, and AI — with deep, hands-on mastery of multi-agent agentic AI solutions. This role is ideal for a deeply experienced engineer who owns the hardest architectural challenges, sets technical direction, and serves as the senior technical voice on the engagements they support, while also being able to roll up their sleeves and lead model development, agentic system design, and production delivery end-to-end.

In this role, you will operate as the senior technical authority on a cross-functional team, defining architecture across cloud infrastructure, data platforms, and AI/ML workloads, with a strong bias toward AWS-native services and AWS GenAI offerings. You'll partner closely with leadership and clients on technical strategy, lead the design and delivery of complex, production-grade multi-agent systems, mentor experienced engineers, and own high-stakes decisions that shape the long-term success of the systems you build.

## Why This Role Matters

At Robots & Pencils, we design AI systems for a human world. Our name says it all. Robots and pencils means engineering paired with creativity, because every agent we ship has to work for real people in real workflows. That balance is baked into how we operate.

Every role here contributes directly to that mission. Here, you shape how AI systems integrate into enterprise operations, how teams move at real velocity, and how products create measurable impact for clients and the people they serve. We ship production-ready AI in 30 to 45 days. That pace demands people who take ownership, lead with craft, and care deeply about what they put their name on.

## What You'll Do

Craft & Delivery

Define technical strategy and lead architectural design across cloud, data, and AI/ML systems for end-to-end engagements, owning architecture decisions and driving solutions from research through production at scale Architect and ship production-grade multi-agent agentic AI systems, including agent orchestration, tool use, memory, and inter-agent communication patterns Design and build with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore and complementary AWS GenAI services to deploy, scale, and operate agentic workloads securely in production Architect scalable cloud-native solutions with a strong bias toward AWS, including multi-cloud and hybrid strategies where needed (AWS primary, with Azure, GCP, Kubernetes as secondary) Design data architectures including warehouses, data lakes, and pipelines for batch and streaming workloads (e.g., Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, Spark, Kafka) Design AI/ML systems including model serving, MLOps pipelines, feature stores, and LLM-based applications (e.g., SageMaker, Bedrock, AgentCore, Vertex AI, MLflow, Hugging Face) Build and evolve scalable ML platforms, pipelines, and infrastructure that support reliable, repeatable model development and deployment across teams Define infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and DevOps standards across engagements (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, GitHub Actions) Drive performance, scalability, cost, and reliability optimization across deployed systems Ensure architecture meets security, governance, and compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2) Lead cloud migrations and platform modernization initiatives Set the standard for AI-forward engineering, using tools like Claude and Cursor with sophistication and helping the team adopt them effectively

Collaboration & Communication

Partner with senior leadership and clients as the principal technical voice on strategy and direction Translate complex AI tradeoffs, risks, and opportunities into clear narratives that drive decision-making across technical and non-technical stakeholders Lead design reviews and technical discussions, raising the bar for engineering rigor and constructive challenge across the team Engage closely with engineering, data, AI, and product teams to align architecture with broader business priorities Develop and maintain architecture documentation, standards, and guidelines

Leadership & Influence

Define and champion architectural standards and best practices across the engagements you support, bringing depth on tradeoffs, long-term implications, and responsible AI practices Mentor and grow engineers at all levels, multiplying impact through coaching, code reviews, and pairing on hard problems Own the most difficult architectural, integration, and agentic-system challenges, serving as the senior technical decision-maker and driving them through to production with care for reliability, cost, and safety Evaluate emerging technologies — especially in the agentic AI and AWS ecosystems — and recommend tools, frameworks, and patterns that improve architecture over time

## What You'll Bring

8+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in technical leadership roles and 4+ years focused on AI/ML systems in productionExpert software engineering background (Python or similar) with strong design sensibilities for scalable, maintainable systems Deep, hands-on expertise designing and shipping production multi-agent agentic AI systems, including agent orchestration, planning, tool use, and multi-agent coordination patterns Deep expertise with AWS, including in-depth knowledge of AWS GenAI offerings and hands-on experience with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore; broader multi-cloud experience (Azure, GCP) is a plus Strong background in microservices, serverless, containers, and event-driven systems (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker, Lambda, EventBridge) Proficiency with infrastructure as code and CI/CD (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi, GitHub Actions) Strong data architecture expertise across relational, NoSQL, and big data systems (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Snowflake, BigQuery, Spark, Kafka) Hands-on experience with data modeling, ETL/ELT pipelines, and orchestration (e.g., Airflow, Prefect, dbt) Mastery of AI frameworks and orchestration tools for building agentic systems (e.g., LangChain, LangGraph, AgentCore, CrewAI, AutoGen, or equivalents) Strong experience designing AI/ML systems for production, including LLMs, MLOps, and model serving (e.g., SageMaker, Bedrock, Vertex AI, MLflow, Hugging Face, PyTorch, TensorFlow) Strong experience with evaluation frameworks and observability tools for LLM and agentic apps, including building these capabilities where they don't yet exist Deep understanding of AI safety, responsible AI principles, prompt injection defenses, and PII handling Extensive experience building RAG pipelines: chunking strategies, embedding models, vector databases, and advanced retrieval techniques API design experience, including architecting and integrating with internal and third-party services at scale Advanced cost optimization expertise: token economics, caching strategies, model routing, quantization Solid understanding of networking, security, identity, and access management in cloud environments Experience with governance, compliance, and observability frameworks Track record of senior technical leadership and mentoring experienced engineers Strong stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to translate technical depth across audiences Demonstrable, day-to-day usage and expert knowledge of AI-forward coding tools such as Claude Code and Cursor Multi-cloud architecture experience, AI ethics or responsible AI experience, or enterprise architecture certifications (e.g., TOGAF, AWS/Azure/GCP) is a plus

Our salary range is $180,375 – $230,625 USD

## About Robots and Pencils

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Robots & Pencils is an Applied AI Engineering Partner that builds generative and agentic AI systems for enterprise clients, taking AI from pilot to production quickly.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Bootstrapped/Organic Growth)
- **Headquarters**: Chagrin Falls, Ohio, United States
- **Founded**: 2009
- **Founders**: Len Pagon (CEO), Nathan Carmon

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: IT Services and IT Consulting, Applied AI Engineering, Cloud-Native Development
- **Target customers**: Enterprise clients in Financial Services, Healthcare, Education, Energy, Retail & Consumer Goods, High Tech, and Transportation
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "We build smart systems for a human world" — blending the logic of machines with the creativity of humans to help organizations modernize platforms, design cloud-native applications, and unlock the real-world value of AI.

## Products & Services
- **Applied AI Engineering**: Building generative and agentic AI systems on Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, with memory, observability, and security built in from the start. Focused on taking AI from pilot to production quickly.
- **Cloud-Native AWS Modernization**: Re-architecting AWS environments from EC2/ECS to serverless-native infrastructure. Migrating legacy systems to cloud-native AWS, beyond lift-and-shift.
- **The Sharpening Sprint™**: A structured engagement to surface the strongest AI use cases for a client and deliver a sequenced build plan.
- **UX/UI Design & Product Strategy**: A creative team of product owners, researchers, UX designers, and visual designers who craft seamless experiences.
- **Legacy Platform Modernization**: Refactoring aging platforms and designing cloud-native applications across industries.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (privately held)
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue of **$21.5M** (estimated) [ca.linkedin.com](https://ca.linkedin.com/company/robots-and-pencils)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: AWS (Advanced Tier Services Partner and Inaugural AWS Pattern Partner)
- **Growth Signals**: Headcount of ~115 employees (+35.1% YoY, +39 people) [ca.linkedin.com](https://ca.linkedin.com/company/robots-and-pencils); 23,753 LinkedIn followers (+55.2% yearly growth); 77M+ users reached worldwide across launched apps; 25 patents & published works; 5 apps hit #1 in the App Store

## Competitive Advantages
- **Applied AI Engineering Focus**: Specializes exclusively in taking generative and agentic AI from pilot to live, fast — a nimble, high-velocity alternative to traditional global systems integrators.
- **AWS Pattern Partner**: One of only 11 inaugural AWS Pattern Partners selected from the AWS Partner Network, signaling deep technical partnership and trust.
- **Senior-Led Teams**: Operates through small, senior teams (15+ years average experience per team member) rather than massive consulting organizations, ensuring high-quality delivery.
- **Human-Centered Design**: Blends elite engineering talent with world-class UX design, differentiating from pure technical consultancies.
- **Proven Track Record**: 77M+ users reached worldwide, 25 patents & published works, and multiple #1 App Store launches.

## Strategic Focus
- **Agentic AI on AWS**: Building agentic systems on Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore with memory, observability, and security built in from the start.
- **Production-Ready AI**: Focused on taking AI from pilot to production in weeks, not months, with a strong emphasis on compliance and regulatory environments (Financial Services, Healthcare).
- **Industry Expansion**: Serving Financial Services, Health Tech, Education, Energy, Retail & Consumer Goods, and High Tech — industries where AI agents create exponential value.
- **Global Delivery Network**: Operating delivery centers across the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, and Latin America to serve enterprise clients worldwide.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as "wicked smart, wildly curious, ready to build" — a culture that values curiosity, collaboration, and impact. The company emphasizes "always learning" and invests in personal and professional growth.
- **Work Model**: Hybrid and remote-friendly. "Whether you are co-located in one of our offices or remote first, we prioritize how teams are set up to focus in on collaboration for successful delivery." [robotsandpencils.com](https://robotsandpencils.com/careers/)
- **Benefits**: Salary continuation and protected leave for parents (birth, spouse, and adoptive); health & wellness benefits; flexible hours; paid time off (vacation, sick, personal leave, flexible holidays).
- **Engineering Culture**: Described as a team of "tech wizards creating digital magic" — frontend, backend, mobile, and full-stack developers working on cutting-edge AI and cloud-native projects. The hiring process includes a pre-screen assessment, skills assessment, and deep dive interview to evaluate culture addition, communication, and technical fit.
- **Global Team**: Delivery centers in the U.S., Canada, Ukraine, Colombia, and the Philippines, offering a diverse, international work environment.

## Sources
1. [robotsandpencils.com](https://robotsandpencils.com/)
2. [robotsandpencils.com/about](https://robotsandpencils.com/about/)
3. [robotsandpencils.com/careers](https://robotsandpencils.com/careers/)
4. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/robotsandpencils](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/robotsandpencils)
5. [ca.linkedin.com/company/robots-and-pencils](https://ca.linkedin.com/company/robots-and-pencils)

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