The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solutions Architect (Contractor) will work with our existing internal AI product management team, Vendor Teams and existing development staff to develop, enhance and streamline our AI systems. Lead the design and implementation of secure, scalable AI and Agentic AI solutions aligned with DES mission, policies, and public-sector standards. Define end-to-end AI architectures including data ingestion, RAG pipelines, LLM orchestration, and human-in-the-loop workflows. Provide technical leadership, relevant architectural documentation for approvals, and guidance to internal teams and system integrators. Ensure compliance with State of Arizona security, privacy, accessibility, and data-governance requirements (PII, HIPAA, CJIS where applicable). Establish reference architectures and best practices for responsible, ethical, and compliant AI use across DES. Evaluate and integrate AI platforms, cloud services, and vendor solutions in coordination with procurement and legal teams. Design architectures that support explainability, auditability, bias mitigation, and transparency in decision-support systems. Collaborate with DevOps (cloud ops), cybersecurity, and data teams to operationalize AI solutions from proof of concept to production systems. Support AI strategy, roadmap development, and executive briefings to scale AI capabilities across DES programs.