AI Solutions Architect
$228k+Application analysis
AI Solutions Architect at Instacart is a forward deployed enterprise software role for engineers who want customer-facing technical work with real deployment ownership.
Reading this role
This Solutions / Sales Engineering role centers on technical discovery, demos, POCs, and helping buyers build internal consensus. Key signals from the listing: Senior scope.
About Instacart
Enterprise software forward deployed engineers drive adoption, integration, and measurable customer outcomes. The role is anchored in Canada - Remote (ON, or NS Only), so expect on-site customer work in that region.
Signals in the listing
Stand out for AI Solutions Architect
- Lead your application with one paragraph tying AI Solutions Architect to a specific customer or deployment you owned — Instacart hires for shipped outcomes, not tool lists.
- Bring a tight demo narrative: customer pain, live workflow, and measurable before/after — treat the interview like a compressed POC.
- Show how you qualify opportunities and say no to bad-fit pilots; Instacart values technical judgment in customer-facing roles.
- This role is tied to Canada - Remote (ON, or NS Only) — mention willingness to work on-site with customers and any existing ties to that market (clients, partners, or domain knowledge).
- Compensation is in a senior band — emphasize staff-level scope: cross-team influence, architecture decisions, and customer exec communication.
Stand out at Instacart
- Demonstrate stakeholder management with a concrete example — Instacart will probe for specifics, not buzzwords.
- Demonstrate integration skill with a concrete example — Instacart will probe for specifics, not buzzwords.
- Prepare stories that move from discovery → pilot → production with named outcomes.
- Read recent engineering blog posts, product launches, and customer stories on instacart.com — reference one explicitly in your outreach to show genuine interest.
Tailored from this listing’s title, company, and description. Always verify requirements on the company careers page before applying.
Role description
We're transforming the grocery industry At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers. Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table. Instacart is a Flex First team There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.
Overview
Instacart's Enterprise Solutions team is building a first-of-its-kind business: embedding directly with enterprise retail and CPG partners to design, sell, and deliver AI-powered solutions at scale. We are a small, senior, field-first pod—part startup, part consultancy—defining the playbook as we go. As the AI Solutions Architect, you own the data and AI architecture, integration design, and governance across every engagement the pod runs. You are the person who makes Instacart's Intelligence Platform actually work inside real partner environments. This is a hands-on, field-first role—you will embed with partner engineering teams to map data ontologies, design integrations, and co-build solutions that work in the real world, not just on a whiteboard.
About the Job
Own data modeling, integration design, and governance across every engagement; serve as the senior technical authority from pre-sales through delivery. Map customer data and Instacart's data ontology together, and gate technical feasibility before any build begins. Establish integration patterns between the Intelligence Platform and partner systems, e.g.,POS, ERP, loyalty, CRM, Snowflake, proprietary APIs, and mobile surfaces. Bridge partner technical requirements with Instacart R&D roadmaps, APIs, and SDKs; surface gaps and advocate for platform changes needed to serve the field. Prototype and code in real-time alongside partners Review designs and unblock the Forward Deployed Engineers to ensure architectural integrity across the pod's engagements. Codify reusable integration patterns into scalable architecture templates as the pod scales. We are looking for someone energized by ambiguity, who builds for reuse and can navigate both a partner's technical reality and Instacart's platform constraints simultaneously, finding the optimal path between them.
About You
Minimum
Qualifications
10+ years in solutions architecture, data engineering, or senior software engineering, with demonstrated experience designing enterprise-scale systems. Deep expertise in data architecture and modeling across messy, heterogeneous enterprise environments, with enough AI/ML familiarity to understand how data quality and structure determine what is possible on the intelligence layer. Experience designing integrations across complex enterprise environments including ERP, POS, Snowflake, and proprietary APIs.
- Hands-on coding is non-negotiable — the ability to build is as important as the ability to design.
Proven customer-facing experience presenting technical architectures to both engineering and executive audiences.
- Strong systems thinking — able to hold the full technical picture of a complex engagement while also working in the details.
Comfort defining architecture from first principles in greenfield, ambiguous environments.
Preferred
Qualifications
Background in retail tech, e-commerce infrastructure, or CPG data systems (POS, ERP,, Snowflake). Familiarity with open agent standards or multi-agent orchestration frameworks. Prior experience in enterprise software implementation or systems integration. Startup or high-growth environment experience. #LI-Remote Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here. Currently, we are only hiring in the following provinces: Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia. Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here. For Canadian based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.
Can
- $216,000—$228,000 CAD