Full-time permanent position.
Hybrid role based in our City Centre offices.
What we offer
We have embraced a hybrid working model for most of our positions, which means you can enjoy a balanced approach of working from home for part of the week and working from the office for the remainder of the week.
We offer a comprehensive benefits package including competitive salaries and bonuses, robust learning and development support, an excellent defined-contribution pension and comprehensive wellbeing initiatives and support.
Company purpose and culture
At Irish Life, our purpose is to help people build better futures.
Our company values shape everything we do and underpin our vision of being the driving force behind Ireland's financial, physical and mental well-being.
We believe in doing the right thing—acting with integrity and making fair, responsible decisions.
We aim high, setting ambitious goals and find better ways to innovate and improve.
Our customers are at the heart of everything we do and we are dedicated to understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations.
Achieving this is only possible when we work best together—in a supportive, collaborative environment where every idea and contribution is valued.
Role Overview
The AI Portfolio Architect owns the enterprise-grade AI strategy, architecture and infrastructure for projects across Customer Solutions (CS), ensuring all AI solutions are designed, delivered and operated in alignment with ILG's AI Governance Framework, the EU AI Act, GDPR, Central Bank of Ireland expectations, EIOPA guidance and emerging European regulatory standards.
The role ensures all AI architectures are compliant, secure, explainable, resilient and effectively governed, supporting the AI Governance Lead through the translation of policy and regulatory requirements into actionable architectural controls and technical patterns.
The successful candidate will partner closely with the AI Governance Lead, fellow Portfolio Architects, Solution Architects, Engineering, Risk, Data, EXO, European governance bodies and business stakeholders to deliver safe, ethical and scalable AI across Irish Life Group.
Responsibilities
Strategic leadership & direction:
Define and champion the long-term strategic vision for AI within Customer Solutions and across ILG.
Develop and maintain an enterprise-aligned roadmap for safe, scalable AI adoption.
Shape long-term capability development across AI platforms, lifecycle maturity, governance and engineering.
Advise senior leaders on AI investment decisions, platform evolution and capital planning.
Identify strategic AI opportunities and threats, informing organisational direction and risk posture.
Define and continuously enhance enterprise AI architecture, reference patterns and guardrails across analytics, ML and generative AI.
Translate AI governance requirements—including EU AI Act obligations, GDPR, DORA, Irish regulatory guidance and ILG governance rules—into actionable architectural controls and technical standards.
Ensure the architecture supports transparency, safety, explainability, auditability and alignment with ILG's enterprise architecture direction.
Embed AI governance & regulatory compliance:
Implement governance frameworks defined by the AI Governance Lead by embedding required architectural controls into solution designs (e.g., bias mitigation, explainability, hallucination control, HITL, model monitoring, lifecycle management).
Provide technical risk assessments, architectural artefacts and evidence packs in support of the Central AI Register, high-risk use-case classification and regulatory or audit reviews.
Ensure CS AI solutions are designed to meet European governance expectations and support escalations to EU governing committees where required.
Implement robust risk-management practices by identifying potential technical risks and architectural challenges within the CS AI domain, and by proposing mitigation strategies to ensure system stability, scalability and optimal performance.
Shape the AI use-case portfolio:
Partner with Product and Portfolio leadership to shape a prioritised AI opportunity pipeline.
Assess technical feasibility, architectural risk, governance implications and regulatory classification early in the use-case lifecycle.
Provide architectural leadership across discovery, design, delivery and operationalisation.
Cloud solutions, governance forums & collaboration:
Develop the CS AI roadmap, outlining future strategic directions aligned with the business strategy.
Provide leadership and direction to the CSIT teams as well as supporting business teams.
Lead the design of Azure AI and related cloud-native solutions, ensuring scalability, robustness, performance and compliance with ILG security and risk standards.
Promote and embed mature MLOps/LLMOps operating models and integrated AI lifecycle controls.
Foster proactive stakeholder engagement by liaising with business leaders, vendors and fellow architects to comprehend business needs and communicate technical possibilities and limitations.
Governance forum contribution:
Be a standing member of the Customer Solutions Design Authority (CSDA) and represent the portfolio on ILG Enterprise Architecture Board & Forum.
Represent AI portfolio interests at ILG Architecture & AI Governance Boards, working closely with the Head of Strategy & Architecture, Risk Leads, ILG AI Governance Lead and wider ILG community.
Ensure all AI designs meet ILG enterprise architecture principles, security requirements and regulatory obligations.
Be an integral member of the Irish Life Group Architecture Community, engaging with peers across the group to ensure alignment of architectural principles and strategic direction.
Cross-functional collaboration:
Partner with AI Governance Lead, Risk, Legal, Data, EXO, Engineering and operational teams to ensure safe and compliant delivery of AI.
Translate complex regulatory and technical requirements into clear, business-friendly guidance.
Support the uplift of AI literacy, governance capability and good architectural practice across CS and ILG.
Exercise commercial awareness by design, ensuring that all team members are driven by business value and fully consider total cost of ownership in all design decisions.
Stay ahead of emerging AI regulations, industry standards, model safety techniques and architectural innovations to optimally leverage new and existing technology for the business.
Key skills and capabilities
Excellent collaboration skills, essential for working within your team and engaging with peers across the IS organisation.
Ability to influence and provide effective support to senior creators and business leaders to align AI-driven initiatives with strategic objectives and responsible AI principles.
Proven track record of delivering complex AI and data-driven solutions within a large enterprise environment, including leading architectural direction for analytics, machine learning and enterprise AI adoption.
Knowledge of application engineering, MLOps, AI lifecycle management and agile delivery practices.
Experience producing high-quality architectural documentation, AI reference architectures, data flow models and governance artefacts.
Excellent problem-solving and decision-making abilities.
Experience designing AI-enabled solutions that drive business value and address complex issues.
Significant experience with data integration patterns, AI security best practices and model governance frameworks.
Experience with various deployment models – on-premise, private cloud, hybrid cloud and public cloud AI services.
Knowledge of modern AI architecture patterns – vector databases, LLM orchestration, prompt engineering, model evaluation.
Experience with the Microsoft AI ecosystem, including Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Services, Fabric and the Power Platform.
Programming skills – Python, PowerShell or similar for scripts and automation workflows.
Understanding of feature stores, model registries, inference optimisation and scalable API deployment.
Capability to embed fairness, interpretability, performance and cost considerations into solutions.
Strong understanding of EU AI Act and how to translate regulations into technical requirements.
Ability to embed regulatory compliance into architecture and delivery.
Minimum of seven years experience in technical design and delivery of strategic AI, data or analytics solutions.
Knowledge of Azure Machine Learning, Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Services, Logic Apps, Azure Functions and other Azure AI services.
Experience in AI lifecycle automation – MLOps practices, model evaluation pipelines and deployment strategies.
Experience with AI security, scalability, observability and performance optimisation.
Strong knowledge of enterprise architecture best practices and AI-specific governance.
Familiarity with agile methodologies and collaborative team practices.
Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
Experience integrating regulatory frameworks into AI delivery and operationalising EU AI Act requirements.
Collaboration with Legal, Compliance, Risk and Governance teams to ensure enterprise-wide alignment.
Understanding of application, infrastructure and security frameworks.
Deep understanding of Microsoft Azure AI and data technologies.
Experience with end-to-end AI solution architectures across IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.
Experience in the financial services sector, preferably life assurance.
Relevant Azure or AI certifications (e.g., Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure AI Engineer Associate).
Knowledge of regulatory requirements such as EU AI Act, GDPR and post-market monitoring.
Experience with AI assurance frameworks, model cards, system documentation and audit-ready controls.
About us
Irish Life is one of Ireland's largest financial institutions, a subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group.
We have a culture of developing and supporting the growth and professional development of our people, positioning us at the forefront of our industry.
Equal opportunities
Irish Life is proud to be an Equal Opportunities employer.
We have created an environment of inclusion and growth to help people achieve their potential and feel valued, respected and supported.
We celebrate diversity of thought and perspective.
We have built a culture that promotes equality and inclusion for all present and future employees and strive to ensure our behaviours, processes and practices reflect this culture.
ILFS supports Equal Opportunity and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
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