Senior Solution Design Consultant (AI)

Job Description IWU is seeking a Senior Solution Design Consultant for AI and Traditional Software (Independent Contractor - 1099 / Contract-to-Hire) to add their expertise to major university wide application refactoring and software development efforts on Sovereign AI-First platforms to advance large-scale technology reorganization projects.

Learn more about IWU and Technology

ABOUT THE ROLE:

• Build real AI-First based solutions, not just bolt-on 3rd party solutions. IWU is reengineering the core of higher education from the ground up.
• IWU is re-platforming its enterprise on a multi-site, active/active, and on-premises data center foundation and an AI-first application stack. Every major initiative needs a solution designer who can translate business intent into buildable specifications - integration patterns, data flows, API contracts, and AI workflow design that can be implemented using advanced "Enterprise Vibe Coding" standards that development teams can implement without guesswork. We are seeking a senior practitioner with extensive AI experience to guide end-to-end solution design for process reengineering, existing application re-platforming, and new product development workstreams.
• This is a hands-on role using the latest AI enabled Enterprise Level Vibe Coding Standards. IWU runs workloads on infrastructure we own and operate in multiple commercial colocation facilities. You will design enterprise application and Sovereign AI Agentic solutions that fit our platform - RAG pipelines, agent-assisted workflows, API integrations, and modern application patterns - within standards set by Enterprise Architecture and Information Security.
• You will be a senior individual contributor with broad influence: you will elicit and document requirements, produce decision-quality design artifacts, facilitate trade-off conversations with business and technical stakeholders, and partner with developers, data engineers, and platform teams until the solution is built, tested, and operational.

Solution Design and Specification

• Lead end-to-end solution design for assigned workstreams - current-state is already well documented, you will help build future-state vision, gap analysis, and RAD approaches aligned to the re-platforming roadmap.
• Produce solution design documents - context diagrams, sequence flows, data models, integration specifications, non-functional requirements, and acceptance criteria that development teams can implement and test against.
• Run design workshops with business owners, product leads, and engineers - capture decisions, assumptions, constraints, and open questions with clear owners and dates.
• Maintain requirements traceability - from requirement capture and business outcomes through design artifact to implemented feature for audit, change control, and benefits tracking.

AI-Native Solution Patterns

• Design AI-first enabled business solutions - Agentic / retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), conversational interfaces, agent-assisted workflows, document intelligence, and decision-support features - that map to our on-premises AI platform capabilities.
• Specify LLM integration patterns - prompt contracts, context assembly, tool-use boundaries, guardrails, fallback behavior, and human-in-the-loop checkpoints appropriate to risk and regulatory context.
• Design data and retrieval flows for AI features - source systems, embedding pipelines, vector store boundaries, freshness requirements, and authorization models that respect FERPA and institutional data classification.
• Partner with the Enterprise AI Architects on platform fit - you design what the solution needs; the architect sets what the platform provides - and escalate exceptions with documented rationale.

Delivery Partnership and Quality

• Support development and QA teams during implementation - clarify specifications, adjudicate edge cases, and approve design deviations with updated documentation.
• Participate in architecture and security review boards - present designs, respond to findings, and track remediation before production release.
• Contribute to the solution standards catalog - reusable patterns, reference implementations, and anti-patterns learned from delivery - so the next team moves faster.
• Partner with EPMO and workstream leads on realistic estimates, dependency mapping, and milestone definitions tied to design completion gates.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

Required

• According to Indiana Wesleyan University policy, all employees and contract-to-hire contractors must possess a strong Christian commitment and adhere to the standards outlined in the IWU Community Lifestyle Statement.
• 8+ years of progressive experience in solution design, business systems analysis, application architecture, or technical product ownership, with 3+ years designing software solutions in production environments.
• Extensive experience as a developer, integration engineer, or data engineer - you know what buildable looks like and push back when designs are fantasy.
• Demonstrated experience producing solution design artifacts - specifications, integration designs, data flows, and API contracts - that development teams have successfully implemented.
• Hands-on AI solution design experience - using RAG, LLM-backed features, agent workflows, or intelligent automation - not merely consuming SaaS AI widgets without understanding the architecture.
• Strong requirements elicitation andd knowledge-transfer skills - workshops, interviews, process mapping, and translating ambiguous business requests into testable requirements.
• Experience designing distributed application and integration solutions - APIs, events, message queues, and enterprise system connectivity.
• Experience with agent and orchestration frameworks at the solution-design level - tool boundaries, state, and operational concerns.
• Experience with vector retrieval and knowledge-base design - chunking strategy, metadata filters, re-ranking, and grounding patterns for enterprise RAG.
• Ability to facilitate trade-off conversations with technical and non-technical stakeholders - you document decisions, not just opinions.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field - or equivalent demonstrated experience.

Strongly Preferred

• Higher-education, non-profit, or other mission-driven institutional experience - student information systems, ERP, LMS, or enrollment/admissions workflows.
• Background in regulated or compliance-sensitive environments - FERPA, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2 - and designing solutions with auditable controls.
• Experience with Agile/SAFe delivery - writing epics and features, participating in PI planning, and aligning design gates to sprint and release cadence.
• Proficiency with modeling and documentation tools - UML, BPMN, C4, Mermaid, D2Lang, Confluence, or equivalent - and the discipline to keep artifacts current.
• Relevant certifications or training (IASA, TOGAF practitioner, SAFe POPM, Azure/AWS or other solution design credentials, or equivalent demonstrated depth).

How You Work

• You design for operability and adoption, not diagram elegance - if support staff cannot run it or users cannot trust it, the design is not done.
• You make assumptions explicit - undocumented assumptions become production defects and steering-meeting arguments.
• You write things down. A verbal design agreement without a specification is a liability.
• You partner with architects and developers as peers - you bring solution context; they bring platform depth.
• You stay curious about AI capability and limits - you design for what models do well today and where human oversight remains mandatory.

Why This Role

• High Impact. Solution designers sit at the center of business intent and build execution - your specifications determine whether teams ship the right thing on the first pass.
• AI-native design from the start. You are not adding chatbots to legacy forms - you are shaping how intelligent workflows, retrieval, and agents fit enterprise processes on our own platform.
• Standards-backed, not ad hoc. You work within a defined architecture and solution standards catalog - enough structure to move fast, enough rigor to stay auditable.
• Cross-functional visibility - Tip of the Spear. You touch integration, data, security, AI platform, and business domains - broad exposure and direct impact on program outcomes.
• Mission and meaning. IWU is a century-old Christ-centered university serving roughly 15,000 learners. The solutions you design determine whether re-platforming serves them well.

PROJECT REMUNERATION:

Estimated annual project remuneration is $190,000 $210,000 for this independent contractor (1099) / Contract to Hire role.

Contractor Insurance/Bond Requirements

• General Liability: $1m per occurrence / $2m aggregate
• Cyber Liability: $2m per occurrence
• Workers' Compensation / Employers' Liability: $500,000; not applicable for approved sole operators
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