Description
**About the project** ***(description, duration, stage)***
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Join Neurons Lab as the **AI Architect** on a flagship engagement with a **European private investment group** — a holding company with a C\-level executive team, an investment/portfolio function and an affiliated family office.
The programme builds **one private, access\-scoped context layer over the group's data** — calls, email, Slack and messengers, board protocols, decks, portfolio updates — and then **AI skills and agents that run on it**: first for the executive team, then for every employee. Two loops sit on the same layer: *alignment* (strategy, OKRs and goal drift made visible) and *efficiency* (a process miner that reads real workflows from the digital footprint, then optimizer agents that ship the automations).
Four phases — **Capture Connect Distill Build** — over roughly **eight to ten two\-week sprints**, opening with a fixed\-fee two\-week **Sprint 0 readiness pass** (data\-access audit, ontology spec, legal checklist across jurisdictions). A family\-office workstream runs in parallel on the same squad.
This is deliberately **not** a wrapper around an off\-the\-shelf platform. The client wants infrastructure they own, deployed privately, with role\-based access for people and full visibility for the AI. The same architecture becomes a **NeuronsLab product line**, so you are designing something that has to survive being redeployed for the next client.
**Stage**: pre\-contract / design\-partner negotiation. **Duration**: multi\-phase, \~4–5 months to production for the executive pilot, with rollout beyond it.
**Reporting**: CTO (@Alex Honchar) and CEO are in the room at every key point — architecture, sprint planning, sprint reviews. You own the technical decisions between those points, working alongside an AI Analyst (1\.0 FTE) and a Data Engineer (0\.5 FTE), plus the client's Head of Security from day one.
**This role is full\-time.**
**What you'll actually do** ***(example tasks)***
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* **Run the Sprint 1 decision spike** and write the decision record: one central private\-cloud store vs. a semantic layer over the existing systems of record vs. ready platforms (Gemini Enterprise, Glean\-class, Cohere\-class, open components) — scored on security, access control, speed, cost and reversibility.
* Design the **ontology / semantic layer** for the group: entities, relationships and business definitions spanning people, meetings, decisions, commitments, goals, deals, portfolio companies and documents.
* Architect the **connector layer as an execution layer, not just an ingestion layer** — MCP / tool\-calling (Composio\-class or built) so agents can *act* in HubSpot, mail, Slack and internal systems, not merely read a stream of data.
* Design **role\-scoped retrieval**: the principle is that AI sees everything and people keep role\-based access. Make that enforceable at the retrieval layer, not just in the UI, and evidence it to the client's security function.
* Architect the **agent layer**: per\-executive skills (Chief of Staff / CIO / CFO / COO), the OKR \& drift coach delivered in Slack, and the **process miner optimizer** chain.
* Choose and stand up the **private deployment** — VPC / on\-prem / managed, model selection and routing, cost and latency envelopes.
* Build the **eval and observability harness**: correctness, groundedness, access\-boundary tests, regression suites before anything reaches an executive.
* Establish **standards and failure\-mode design** — human\-in\-the\-loop boundaries for agents that take real actions, audit trails, rollback.
* Stay hands\-on: implement the critical pieces yourself, review the pod's work, and keep the build **portable enough to redeploy** as a NeuronsLab offering.
* Explain all of the above to a C\-level audience **in plain language**, in review sessions and working groups.
**Skills**
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* **Agentic system architecture** end to end: retrieval, tools, orchestration, memory, evals, guardrails
* **Ontology / knowledge\-graph engineering** and semantic layers over heterogeneous sources (RDF/OWL, Neo4j, dbt\-style modelling — pragmatism over purity)
* **RAG / GraphRAG** at production quality, including hybrid retrieval and permission\-aware retrieval
* **MCP, tool\-calling and connector platforms**; designing agents that perform actions with side effects safely
* **Private / sovereign deployment**: VPC, on\-prem, self\-hosted or open\-weight models; AWS and/or GCP data \+ AI stack
* **Identity, access control and data governance** applied to AI systems (RBAC/ABAC, scoping, audit)
* Strong hands\-on **Python**; comfortable writing the hard 20% of the code yourself
* **Evals \& observability** for LLM systems; treating quality as measurable, not anecdotal
* Advanced written and spoken **English**; can hold an architecture conversation with a CIO and a CISO in the same meeting
**Knowledge**
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* The current **enterprise context\-layer landscape** — Glean\-class platforms, Cohere\-class "AI OS" products, Microsoft Copilot / Agents, Gemini Enterprise, Palantir\-style foundries — and where each genuinely differs
* **GDPR** and data\-residency constraints for multi\-jurisdiction European groups; what makes a private deployment defensible
* **Financial services / private\-equity context** — investment policy, portfolio reporting, board process — a strong plus
* OKR / goal\-management mechanics, enough to architect for them
**Experience**
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* **7\+ years** hands\-on AI/ML engineering, of which **2\+ years building LLM / agentic systems in production**
* **3\+ years** as technical lead or architect on client\-facing delivery
* Demonstrated **ontology / knowledge\-graph or semantic\-layer** work over messy real\-world enterprise data
* Experience with **regulated or security\-sensitive clients** (BFSI, government, healthcare) and private deployment
* Experience in **consulting or a services business** — comfortable being the technical face to a C\-level client
* Comfortable as the **most senior technical person on a 2\.5\-FTE pod**, with founders as sparring partners rather than a safety net