(Senior) Principal Infrastructure Architect IPAI (m/f/d)

Introduction text

Artificial intelligence is the key technology of the future and will enable us to solve the challenges of the coming decades. The German economy can only maintain its competitiveness and actively shape sustainable and ethical values if it creates a leading position in value creation in the field of AI. This transformation will succeed through collaboration in the ecosystem - by pooling resources. IPAI wants to be this platform. We promote value creation in the field of AI, connect application and transformation partners and create joint user cases. To this end, we are building a place where ideas can be rethought, tried out and learned anew. All with the aim of developing new business ideas and models through AI solutions, based on the foundations of sustainability, digital responsibility and European sovereignty.

You are responsible for IPAI’s infrastructure substrate: the compute, storage, networking, identity, security, and operational foundations that everything else depends on. You translate strategic goals, regulatory requirements, and ecosystem needs into concrete, implementable infrastructure architectures, and ensure they are built and operated to a high standard.

Your tasks

• Own IPAI’s infrastructure architecture end to end, defining target architectures for compute (including GPUs), storage, networking, identity, security, and isolation models.
• Translate strategic, legal, and governance requirements into concrete systems, balancing performance, cost, sovereignty, compliance, and usability.
• Specify and drive implementation of infrastructure solutions, ensuring architectures are implementable, operable, and resilient in practice.
• Act as the primary technical interface to internal IT, external providers, and partners, aligning IPAI’s needs with enterprise and public‑sector realities.
• Define operational and security standards, including access models, monitoring, reliability expectations, and auditability.
• Continuously evolve the infrastructure foundation, anticipating future needs of IPAI services and members while maintaining stability and trust.

Your profile

• Extensive experience as an Infrastructure Architect, Platform Architect, or senior infrastructure engineer in complex, regulated, or multi‑stakeholder environments.
• Proven track record of designing and delivering large‑scale infrastructure systems that are used by multiple teams or external users.
• Experience working with public‑sector, enterprise IT, or regulated industries is highly desirable.
• Deep understanding of modern infrastructure stacks, including cloud and/or on‑prem environments, networking, storage, identity and access management, and security architectures.
• Hands‑on experience with infrastructure implementation and automation (e.g. Kubernetes, Terraform or similar tooling).
• Strong grasp of reliability, scalability, observability, and cost‑management principles.
• Ability to design clear platform interfaces and constraints that enable higher‑level services to operate effectively.
• Strong systems thinker with excellent judgment in making and explaining trade‑offs.
• Credible communicator across engineering, legal, governance, and executive audiences.