Associate Director - AI Infrastructure Architect (AI Factory)

About the role

Novartis is hiring an Associate Director - AI Infrastructure Architect (AI Factory) in Prague. This is an individual contributor architecture role that defines the reference architecture and guardrails for AI workloads across Azure, AWS and private AI environments, covering training and inference platforms, GPU capacity, data pipelines, model operations, logging, monitoring, cost control and lifecycle governance. It sets the standard way an AI use case moves from idea to a hosted, monitored, auditable service.

Key responsibilities

• Own the AI infrastructure reference architecture and standards for training, fine-tuning, inference and retrieval-augmented patterns across public cloud and private hosting.
• Define the standard AI workload intake pattern, including architecture review criteria, data classification handling, environment selection and production readiness conditions.
• Set guardrails for sensitive data, model access, logging, monitoring, resilience, retention and cost, with Security, Data Privacy and Quality.
• Design GPU and accelerator capacity patterns (shared pools, reservations, scheduling, quotas, burst to cloud) and support the related cost models.
• Support qualification of AI platforms, regions and services for enterprise use with AI & HPC Engineering and public cloud architects.
• Define the MLOps and LLMOps reference chain: model registry, versioning, evaluation, deployment, drift and performance monitoring, and decommissioning.
• Maintain architecture decision records linked to business value, risk posture and total cost of ownership.
• Advise business, research and delivery stakeholders on feasible AI infrastructure options and track the market for emerging accelerators and platform services.
• Coach engineers and architects on AI infrastructure practice and act as a role model for the company values.

Required profile

• 8+ years of experience in infrastructure, cloud or platform architecture, with a track record of enterprise-scale solutions.
• Demonstrated expertise in building, deploying and operating AI and machine learning infrastructure in production.
• Experience moving AI solutions from proof of concept to scalable, governed, business-critical services.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, able to explain complex AI infrastructure to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Desirable: fluent written and spoken English; additional languages are an asset.

Required skills

• GPU and accelerator technologies, Kubernetes and container orchestration.
• Azure and AWS cloud-based AI platforms.
• Model serving, inference optimization, MLOps/LLMOps and data and vector pipelines.
• Identity and access management, observability, FinOps and secure AI platform operations.
• Familiarity with Responsible AI principles (explainability, auditability, logging, human oversight).

What we offer

• Base salary range of CZK 1,120,210 to CZK 2,080,390, with a possible performance-based bonus.
• Benefits such as insurance plans, retirement plans, wellbeing resources and global recognition programs.
• Flexible and hybrid working where possible, and at least 14 weeks of paid parental leave.