Applied AI Architect, Government

About the Team The OpenAI for Government AI Architect team partners with public sector organizations to turn OpenAI's most capable models into meaningful, real-world impact. We work with government agencies, public institutions, and partner organizations serving the government to identify where AI can advance critical missions, design secure and scalable solutions, and help those solutions move from early exploration into sustained production adoption. The team brings together technical strategy, customer partnership, and practical deployment expertise, working closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, Research, Security, Global Affairs, and specialist delivery teams to help public sector customers adopt advanced AI responsibly and effectively. About the Role As an AI Architect, you will be the senior technical owner for a named portfolio of customers and the primary technical counterpart to their leadership teams. You will shape each customer's AI strategy and guide their journey from pre-sales discovery and solution evaluation through deployment, adoption, and measurable mission impact. You will own the technical account plan across ChatGPT Enterprise, the OpenAI API, Codex, and other agentic AI solutions. In partnership with the Account Director, you will translate mission priorities into a focused use-case portfolio, an actionable adoption roadmap, and a clear path to durable customer value. The Account Director leads the overall account strategy and relationship, while you lead the technical strategy, customer journey, and path to production impact. You will remain accountable for the technical outcome while bringing in the right specialists across deployment, implementation, enablement, security, product, and partners to provide deeper expertise and execute work where needed. This role calls for strong public sector fluency, sound architectural judgment, and the ability to move confidently between executive strategy and hands-on technical conversations. This role is based in Washington, D.C. We use a hybrid work model of three days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. In this role, you will: - Serve as the primary technical advisor and long-term technical relationship owner for a named portfolio of public sector customers and pre-sales prospects. - Partner with Account Directors on account strategy while owning the technical account plan, technical milestones, adoption priorities, and expansion opportunities. - Lead discovery with agency leaders, mission owners, executives, and technical teams to identify, qualify, and prioritize use cases tied to meaningful mission and operational outcomes. - Develop clear Applied AI Architectures spanning models, applications, data, integration, identity, security, privacy, governance, evaluation, and deployment. - Guide customers through technical evaluations, demonstrations, workshops, prototypes, and proofs of value, building confidence in both the solution and its path to production. - Help customers navigate the security, compliance, governance, and deployment requirements that shape AI adoption in the public sector. - Maintain a focused use-case portfolio with clear decision criteria, ownership, blockers, success measures, delivery needs, and adoption plans. - Develop trusted relationships and technical champions across CIOs, CTOs, CISOs, Chief Data and AI Officers, program leaders, engineering teams, and other customer stakeholders. - Qualify and coordinate support from Deployment Engineering, implementation, training and enablement, security, product and domain specialists, partners, and other delivery teams. - Remain accountable for technical progress and customer outcomes while ensuring delivery teams own implementation execution once engaged. - Track adoption, usage, account health, production readiness, and measurable mission impact, intervening early when risks threaten value realization. - Apply public sector and mission expertise to recognize repeatable patterns, sharpen customer priorities, and identify relevant expansion opportunities. - Share customer insights with Product, Engineering, and Research, translating field learnings into better products, architecture guidance, and reusable practices. You might thrive in this role if you: - Have significant experience in customer-facing technical roles such as solutions architecture, solutions engineering, technical account leadership, AI deployment, or technical customer success. - Have guided complex organizations from technical evaluation through production adoption and measurable impact. - Have experience working with government agencies, public institutions, or government contractors and understand how mission priorities, security, compliance, governance, and procurement considerations shape technology adoption. - Build credibility with senior technical and government leaders while communicating equally well with hands-on engineers and program teams. - Bring strong software and cloud architecture foundations, including APIs, distributed systems, data integration, identity, security, and privacy. - Understand modern AI systems, frontier models, agentic applications, model evaluation, retrieval, and enterprise AI workflows. - Can prototype, explain technical tradeoffs, and work confidently with APIs, SDKs, and languages such as Python or JavaScript. - Exercise sound judgment about when to go deep personally, when to involve specialists, and how to establish clear handoffs and ownership. - Have experience developing technical account plans, prioritizing complex customer portfolios, and connecting adoption to measurable outcomes. - Bring meaningful expertise in a relevant public sector mission or customer segment. - Communicate clearly and can turn ambiguity into a practical technical narrative, executive decision, or action plan. - Work collaboratively across disciplines and care deeply about helping public sector organiza