Architecture, interiors, landscape & planning studio with offices in Seattle, New York City, and Chicago.
The Role
The Senior Data & AI Developer will build AI tools, maintain analytics dashboards, and oversee data architecture, ensuring effective data use across the firm.
Summary Generated by Built In
About our Firm
Olson Kundig is a design practice founded on the idea that the built environment can serve as a bridge between nature, culture, and people — and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Our work spans the globe, from huts to high‑rises, private residences to museums, academic and civic projects, and places of worship.
As the firm grows, so does the need for high‑quality data, analytics, and intelligent tools that support design excellence, operational clarity, and strategic decision‑making.
Role Overview
We are seeking a Senior Data & AI Developer to play a critical, high‑impact role at the intersection of data infrastructure, business intelligence, applied AI, and organizational change.
This is not a traditional reporting role — and not a purely experimental AI role. This position sits squarely in the middle: building trusted data foundations, deploying AI‑enabled workflows, and helping hundreds of professionals adopt new ways of working with confidence.
You will report to the Director of Data Analytics and serve as a primary bridge between the firm’s Data & Analytics team and the broader organization — translating business needs into reliable, usable analytics and AI‑powered solutions. Success in this role depends as much on listening, communication, and judgment as on technical skill.
The team is at an inflection point:
What You Will Do
AI Tool Deployment & Enablement
Within the first 6–12 months, you will have:
Experience & Education
AI & LLM Engineering
This is an opportunity to shape how a globally recognized design firm uses data and AI — not as novelty, but as durable infrastructure that supports better decisions, better work, and better outcomes.
What can you expect from us?
Olson Kundig is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, gender, age, religion, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. Applicants with disabilities may request reasonable accommodations at any point in the employment process.
In compliance with Washington State’s Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (RCW 49.58.110), Olson Kundig provides transparent compensation information in all job postings. For this position based in Seattle, Washington, the annual salary is between $120,000. and $150,000. Final salary decisions are made based upon the extent and relevance of the candidate’s experience, as well as internal equity and external market factors.
In addition to a dynamic and creative culture, Olson Kundig provides a generous benefits package that includes 16 days of paid time off, paid holidays, health plan, 401k match, bonuses, profit-sharing plans for qualified positions, a monthly travel subsidy for public transportation, and more.
Olson Kundig is a design practice founded on the idea that the built environment can serve as a bridge between nature, culture, and people — and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Our work spans the globe, from huts to high‑rises, private residences to museums, academic and civic projects, and places of worship.
As the firm grows, so does the need for high‑quality data, analytics, and intelligent tools that support design excellence, operational clarity, and strategic decision‑making.
Role Overview
We are seeking a Senior Data & AI Developer to play a critical, high‑impact role at the intersection of data infrastructure, business intelligence, applied AI, and organizational change.
This is not a traditional reporting role — and not a purely experimental AI role. This position sits squarely in the middle: building trusted data foundations, deploying AI‑enabled workflows, and helping hundreds of professionals adopt new ways of working with confidence.
You will report to the Director of Data Analytics and serve as a primary bridge between the firm’s Data & Analytics team and the broader organization — translating business needs into reliable, usable analytics and AI‑powered solutions. Success in this role depends as much on listening, communication, and judgment as on technical skill.
The team is at an inflection point:
- Transitioning from traditional BI toward a purpose‑built AI ecosystem
- Undergoing a major ERP replacement
- Scaling analytics capabilities to meet growing firm‑wide demand
What You Will Do
AI Tool Deployment & Enablement
- Build, deploy, and support the maintenance and updates of our firm’s custom-built large language model (LLM) for Project Managers, currently in beta testing, as well as the creation of new LLMs for operational teams (e.g., Marketing, Legal, Resource Planning, Finance).
- Collaborate on the design and deployment of new AI tools for firm-wide use, ensuring outputs are reliable, interpretable, and aligned to business needs.
- Serve as a primary resource for staff using AI productivity tools (e.g., Claude, Cursor, GitHub), answering questions, providing guidance, and developing training and onboarding materials.
- Assist in developing prompt engineering standards and AI workflow design guidelines for firm use.
- Create tools that Project Managers and Operational Departments use daily.
- Maintain existing Power BI dashboards to ensure accuracy, performance, and usability while looking for opportunities to migrating data into our LLM-powered analytics platform, maintaining continuity during the transition.
- Build analytics models and data products that serve Projects, Operations, Finance, HR, Marketing, Legal, and Executive Leadership.
- Improve data accessibility and trust for project managers, designers, and firm leadership.
- Contribute to the design and implementation of a Single Source of Truth (SSOT) architecture using APIs and modern data integration patterns.
- Build and maintain data pipelines across structured and unstructured sources, including project data, finance systems, resource planning, BIM data, and operational systems.
- Participate in data governance conversations during the firm’s ERP replacement, including requirements gathering, configuration input, and data migration planning and execution.
- Define and enforce data quality standards, documentation, lineage, and compliance practices.
- Create clear documentation, onboarding materials, and internal communications that support adoption of new tools and workflows.
- Support firm‑wide data and AI skill‑building initiatives.
- Manage stakeholder expectations through transparent communication as systems and processes evolve.
- Contribute to a culture where data quality, experimentation, and thoughtful automation are valued.
Within the first 6–12 months, you will have:
- Delivered 4 to 6 analytics and AI tools that are actively used across multiple departments
- Helped establish trusted data foundations during a major ERP transition
- Improved the firm’s ability to use AI responsibly and productively, not experimentally
- Earned trust as a cross‑department partner who balances speed, quality, and clarity
Experience & Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Analytics, or equivalent experience
- 5–8+ years of experience in data analytics, analytics engineering, business intelligence, or related roles with increasing scope and ownership
- Advanced SQL skills, including query optimization and data modeling
- Proficient Python developer: ETL/ELT pipelines, REST API backends, automation, and AI application development; experience with pandas, SQLAlchemy, FastAPI, and LangChain or similar.
- Hands‑on Power BI experience (data modeling, DAX, deployment, and maintenance)
- Experience architecting and building multi-system API integrations, including authentication flows (OAuth 2.0 / SSO/SAML) and webhook patterns.
- Hands-on Git-based development workflows: branching, code review, CI/CD pipelines, testing, and production deployment.
- Experience designing and implementing data lake or lakehouse architectures using structured and unstructured data sources (e.g., Delta Lake, Azure Data Lake Storage, S3, or equivalent).
- Hands-on cloud deployment experience (Azure preferred, AWS, Snowflake, Databricks): compute, storage, managed databases, container services, and identity/access management
- Experience working with messy, real‑world data and legacy systems
AI & LLM Engineering
- Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM applications: RAG pipelines, vector store management (Pinecone, pgvector, or Weaviate), embedding workflows, and API integration using Anthropic, OpenAI, or Azure OpenAI SDKs
- Experience implementing AI evaluation frameworks (e.g., LangSmith, Arize, or custom evals) to monitor model outputs, detect drift, and enforce output quality in production
- Experience deploying AI applications to cloud infrastructure (Azure, AWS, or GCP), including containerization (Docker), serverless functions, and SSO/identity integration for enterprise tool rollout
- Strong listening skills and ability to clarify ill‑defined problems
- Ability to communicate effectively with technical peers, non‑technical staff, and executive leadership
- Proven ability to build trust across departments with competing priorities
- Experience with ERP systems in professional services or project‑based organizations
- Familiarity with data governance frameworks or formal data quality practices
- Experience working in AEC, design, or creative professional environments
- Background in internal training, enablement, or change management
This is an opportunity to shape how a globally recognized design firm uses data and AI — not as novelty, but as durable infrastructure that supports better decisions, better work, and better outcomes.
What can you expect from us?
- A creative work environment and colleagues who are collaborative, creative, and challenging
- Opportunity to grow professionally
- Check our culture page to learn about life at Olson Kundig
Olson Kundig is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, gender, age, religion, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. Applicants with disabilities may request reasonable accommodations at any point in the employment process.
In compliance with Washington State’s Equal Pay and Opportunities Act (RCW 49.58.110), Olson Kundig provides transparent compensation information in all job postings. For this position based in Seattle, Washington, the annual salary is between $120,000. and $150,000. Final salary decisions are made based upon the extent and relevance of the candidate’s experience, as well as internal equity and external market factors.
In addition to a dynamic and creative culture, Olson Kundig provides a generous benefits package that includes 16 days of paid time off, paid holidays, health plan, 401k match, bonuses, profit-sharing plans for qualified positions, a monthly travel subsidy for public transportation, and more.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Data Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Analytics, or equivalent experience
- 5-8+ years of experience in data analytics, analytics engineering, business intelligence, or related roles
- Advanced SQL skills, including query optimization and data modeling
- Proficient Python developer: ETL/ELT pipelines, REST API backends, automation, and AI application development
- Hands-on Power BI experience (data modeling, DAX, deployment, and maintenance)
- Experience architecting and building multi-system API integrations
- Hands-on Git-based development workflows: branching, code review, CI/CD pipelines
- Experience designing and implementing data lake or lakehouse architectures
- Hands-on cloud deployment experience (Azure preferred, AWS, Snowflake, Databricks)
- Experience working with messy, real-world data and legacy systems
- Hands-on experience building and deploying LLM applications
- Experience implementing AI evaluation frameworks to monitor model outputs
- Experience deploying AI applications to cloud infrastructure (Azure, AWS, or GCP)
- Strong listening skills and ability to clarify ill-defined problems
- Ability to communicate effectively with technical peers, non-technical staff, and executive leadership
- Proven ability to build trust across departments with competing priorities
Am I A Good Fit?
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.
Success! Refresh the page to see how your skills align with this role.
The Company
What We Do
Now in its sixth decade of practice, Olson Kundig is a collaborative design practice led by 13 principal/owners whose work includes cultural and museum projects, exhibition design, commercial and mixed-use design (including wineries and sports facilities), private and multi-family residential, hospitality projects, places of worship, interior design, product design and landscape design. With deep roots in the Pacific Northwest, the firm and its team of over 350 work with clients around the world. The firm began its creative existence in 1966 with the architect Jim Olson, whose work at that time centered on explorations of the relationship between dwellings and the landscapes in which they inhabit. Olson started the firm based on the essential ideas that buildings can serve as a bridge between nature, culture, histories, and people, and that inspiring surroundings have a positive effect on people’s lives. Among the firm’s accolades are the 2009 National AIA Architecture Firm Award (as Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects), national and regional design awards from the American Institute of Architects, Jim Olson’s 2007 Seattle Medal of Honor and Tom Kundig’s National Design Award from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt and his Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Books on the firm’s work include Tom Kundig: Working Title (Princeton Architectural Press, 2020); Jim Olson: Building • Nature • Art (Thames & Hudson, 2018); Tom Kundig: Works (Princeton Architectural Press, 2015); Jim Olson: Art and Architecture (August Editions, 2013); Tom Kundig: Houses 2 (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011); Jim Olson Houses (The Monacelli Press, 2009); and Tom Kundig: Houses (Princeton Architectural Press, originally published in 2006 and re-released in 2021).
.png)
