AI LEAD / AI ARCHITECT

What we offer In order to keep pace with its growth and expansion, the company is looking for highly motivated and passionate individuals to join the team with tremendous growth potential. Please update your resume in MS WORD format (Attn: HR Manager): hr.snss@southnests.com All personal information collected from unsuccessful applicants may be retained for one year from the date of submission for the purpose of any suitable future opportunity and will be removed thereafter. If you wish to withdraw your consent at any time before the stated time-frame, please write in to hr.snss@southnests.com. Department: Digital Transformation / Information Technology Reporting To: Director Marine Assurance Location: Chennai and Mumbai, India Experience: 7+ Years POSITION SUMMARY: Seeking an experienced AI Lead with 7+ years of experience to define AI architecture, establish standards, drive AI strategy, and provide technical leadership. The role will build and lead the AI engineering team, ensuring strong architectural governance, scalable solutions, and successful execution of the organization's AI initiatives. The AI Lead will define and drive the organization's AI strategy, architecture, and roadmap, leading the design, implementation, and optimization of AI, Machine Learning, Generative AI, Agentic AI analytics, and automation solutions. The role will be responsible for establishing enterprise AI standards, best practices, and reference architectures while building and leading the Phoenix AI team to support current and future AI transformation initiatives. The candidate will oversee the development of scalable AI platforms and engineering capabilities, drive the adoption of AI copilots, multi-agent systems, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), enterprise knowledge architectures, and advanced AI solutions integrated with business systems and the Phoenix ERP ecosystem. The role will provide leadership across AI platform strategy, LLMOps, model evaluation and governance, prompt engineering, AI security, responsible AI, knowledge engineering, semantic data modelling, and multimodal AI capabilities. Working closely with business and technology stakeholders, the AI Lead Architect will ensure the delivery of secure, scalable, and business-aligned AI solutions that accelerate innovation, operational excellence, and the organization's broader maritime digital transformation agenda. The role will provide architectural leadership for AI platforms built primarily on the Microsoft Azure ecosystem, leveraging Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, Azure Machine Learning, and related Azure services to deliver scalable enterprise AI solutions. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: Strong experience in AI/ML solution architecture, Microsoft Azure AI services, MLOps / LLMOps, and Generative AI technologies, including Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, Azure AI Search, and Azure Machine Learning. PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Required - 5+ years of hands-on AI/ML implementation experience Experience integrating AI solutions with ERP or enterprise platforms Experience with cloud architectures and enterprise data environments Preferred - Experience in maritime, shipping, logistics, offshore, or industrial sectors Exposure to ship management systems and maritime digitalisation projects Experience leading digital transformation initiatives KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: 1. AI Strategy, Architecture & Governance Define and lead the organization's AI vision, architecture, roadmap, governance framework, standards, and best practices, ensuring alignment with business objectives, digital transformation goals, security, compliance, and ethical AI principles. 2. AI Solution Design & Enterprise Integration Architect, design, and oversee the implementation of scalable AI/ML, Generative AI, automation, and analytics solutions, ensuring seamless integration with ERP systems, enterprise applications, IoT platforms, vessel systems, and external data sources. 3. Data Engineering, Analytics & Platform Development Establish and manage enterprise data architecture, governance frameworks, data pipelines, integration platforms, reporting systems, dashboards, and business intelligence capabilities to enable data-driven decision making. 4. AI/ML Model Development & Lifecycle Management Lead the development, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement of AI/ML models, including predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, forecasting, NLP, document intelligence, and LLM-based applications, ensuring performance, reliability, transparency, and scalability. 5. Technology Evaluation, Security & Compliance Evaluate and recommend AI technologies, platforms, tools, and vendors while ensuring adherence to cybersecurity, data privacy, regulatory, maritime, and industry compliance requirements. 6. Leadership, Team Building & Stakeholder Management Build W