Head of Architecture & AI

Head of Architecture & AI 📍 Portugal (open across Portugal) | Hybrid, some travel A leading international software company is hiring a Head of Architecture & AI for its IT Leadership team. The role was created to set the direction of the company’s technology architecture. You’ll lead the teams building its integration and AI foundations, and you’ll make sure every major technology decision holds up on security, cost and scalability. This is a leadership role with real hands-on scope. About 60% is architecture and 40% is leading a team of architects, integration engineers and AI engineers, and the AI team is set to grow. What you’ll own - Enterprise & Solution Architecture: Define the current state, the target state and the roadmap between them across applications, data, integration, AI and security. Set principles, patterns and guardrails, and make the buy/build/reuse/retire calls. - Architecture Governance: Chair the Architecture Review Board and make sure new platforms, integrations and AI solutions align to the target state before they ship. - Integration: Lead the Integration team and own the integration strategy across SaaS, APIs, data services and legacy systems, cutting point-to-point sprawl along the way. - AI Architecture & Delivery: Define the AI architecture (platforms, models, agents, data and governance). Lead AI Engineering from proof of concept to production, set responsible-AI guardrails and own the business case for AI initiatives. - Leadership & Partnership: Be the go-to technology adviser for business and IT leaders. Support vendor and platform selection, and grow a high-performing team. What you’ll bring - Significant experience in enterprise and end-to-end solution architecture - A proven track record leading Architecture, Integration or AI teams in a complex international organisation - Strong enterprise integration design across SaaS, APIs, cloud and legacy environments - Practical experience delivering AI, GenAI, intelligent automation or AI agents within sound data, security and governance frameworks - Experience setting up architecture standards, governance and technology roadmaps - The ability to tie technology decisions to business value, cost and risk, and to explain them clearly to senior stakeholders - Professional fluency in English - Nice to have: exposure to CRM (e.g. Dynamics 365 CE), ServiceNow, ERP platforms and iPaaS tools Why apply? - Join the IT Leadership team, reporting directly to senior leadership - Shape the AI strategy and build out a growing AI Engineering function - A competitive package with bonus and benefits Interested? Apply or message me directly for a confidential conversation.