Senior AI Architect

Some careers grow faster than others. 
If you’re looking to shape what “digital-first banking” really means, this is your seat at the table.

At HSBC, we’re building AI at global scale - securely, responsibly, and with measurable impact for millions of customers and colleagues. We’re hiring a Group AI Architect to define our Group-wide AI direction and design the core AI/GenAI platform that makes adoption safer, faster, and repeatable across businesses and regions.

This is a rare opportunity to sit at the centre of strategy and execution: shaping standards, reference architectures and “paved road” services that product and engineering teams can use with confidence across a complex, internationally regulated environment. If you’re an architect who can influence at senior levels and go deep on real-world GenAI platform design, this is your seat at the table.

What You’ll Do

You’ll be a Senior Architect in the AI leadership community at Director level, working across GCIO, CTO, engineering teams and business stakeholders to turn strategy into a platform that teams can safely use at pace.

Key responsibilities include:

• Shape Group AI strategy and platform direction by engaging and influencing senior stakeholders across technology and business lines.
• Design the Group AI platform reference architecture (logical and technical), spanning data, model lifecycle, compute, tooling, orchestration, observability and governance.
• Lead hands-on architecture and design for foundational AI/GenAI services (e.g., model onboarding, RAG patterns, agent/tooling patterns, evaluation, guardrails).
• Define integration architecture connecting AI capabilities to enterprise data, applications and APIs, including cloud/on-prem telemetry (e.g., FinOps, monitoring, asset inventories).
• Set the blueprint for platform infrastructure across hybrid cloud and on-prem: compute, storage, networking, security, identity and access.
• Champion standards and responsible AI through architecture governance forums—ensuring solutions are secure, compliant and reusable.
• Translate industry trends into actionable decisions, identifying opportunities and risks in a fast-moving AI landscape.
• Partner with domain owners to align core capabilities into roadmaps and drive adoption.
• Support vendor evaluation and PoCs, bringing architectural rigour to selection and scale-out decisions.

What You’ll Deliver

• A Group AI Platform Reference Architecture with detailed designs per layer (data, model, compute, tooling, orchestration, governance).
• Reusable architectures and “paved road” patterns for high-value AI use cases across the organisation.
• A capability roadmap for centrally engineered AI services and tooling, aligned to architecture taxonomies and governance.
• Clear integration patterns for data, APIs, applications and telemetry—built for scale, resilience and auditability.

What You’ll Bring

We’re looking for a visionary architect who can also get into the detail and help teams ship.

Essential experience:

• Deep knowledge of GenAI and agentic architectures, frameworks and design patterns.
• Proven, hands-on experience taking AI/GenAI solutions into production (not just prototypes).
• Strong background designing scalable, resilient AI platforms, including model lifecycle, tooling, controls and operational readiness.
• Senior architecture experience in large, complex, internationally regulated organisations.
• Ability to learn fast, simplify complexity, and turn emerging trends into practical standards and patterns.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity, data privacy, model risk, legal/compliance and control requirements for AI in financial services.

Highly valued (nice to have, but we’d love to see it):

• Experience with MLOps/LLMOps (evaluation, monitoring, model/prompt/version management, release controls, governance).
• Experience designing RAG and knowledge architectures (vector stores, embedding lifecycle, access controls, data lineage).
• Experience with AI safety and red teaming approaches for GenAI systems.
• Strong platform engineering fundamentals

Why HSBC

You’ll help build AI capabilities that are used globally, with the scale, complexity and responsibility that comes with banking. You’ll work with diverse teams across regions and disciplines—and you’ll have the mandate to create standards that make AI adoption safer, faster and more consistent.

Ready to shape the future of AI at HSBC?

Apply now to join our CTO and Emerging Technology, Innovation & Ventures team as Group AI Architect.

Being open to different points of view is important for our business and the communities we serve. At HSBC, we’re dedicated to creating diverse and inclusive workplaces - no matter their gender, ethnicity, disability, religion, sexual orientation, or age. We are committed to removing barriers and ensuring careers at HSBC are inclusive and accessible for everyone to be at their best. We take pride in being a Disability Confident Leader and will offer an interview to people with disabilities, long term conditions or neurodivergent candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the role.

If you have a need that requires accommodations or changes during the recruitment process, please get in touch with our Recruitment Helpdesk:

Email: hsbc.recruitment@hsbc.com
Telephone: +44 207 832 8500