Staff Software Engineer

Staff Forward Deployed Engineer

JLL empowers you to shape a brighter way. Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world class services, advisory and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers and to find a place where they belong. Whether you've got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you're looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward.

Role Overview

As a Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, you will operate at the front lines of innovation — subject matter experts, product, and engineering teams to rapidly design, architect, prototype, and deploy solutions that solve high-priority business problems. This is not a traditional engineering role with long delivery cycles: you will be expected to go from concept to working prototype in days, not months, while maintaining enterprise-grade standards for quality, security, and scalability.

You will act as the embedded technical owner across several teams simultaneously — diagnosing their workflow and data problems, then architecting and building the fix yourself. You will use modern AI coding assistants day-to-day to design and implement solutions, and you're expected to be fluent extending that toolset — building custom plugins/skills, redesigning data pipelines and data flows, and deploying agents to production via AWS Bedrock AgentCore. At the Staff level, your impact extends beyond any single team: you define the patterns and playbooks other engineers use to deliver, and you act as the escalation point for the hardest technical and stakeholder problems across the portfolio.

You bring an exceptional combination of skills: deep hands-on engineering experience across AI agents, data architecture, and full-stack development, and the interpersonal skills to earn trust, drive alignment, and influence without authority across multiple teams at once. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a system architecture with senior stakeholders and shipping production code the same afternoon.

Key Responsibilities

Solution Design & Architecture

• Lead solution design for complex, cross-functional data and AI problems — from initial discovery through to technical blueprint
• Evaluate and select the right tools and architecture for each problem — no single stack applies across every team you support, so you must be able to reason across different platforms, data sources, and integration patterns
• Define and communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, and delivery approaches to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Design scalable, modular systems that balance speed with enterprise standards for reliability, security, and maintainability
• Create clear technical documentation: architecture diagrams, data flow maps, API contracts, and solution briefs
• Establish reusable architecture patterns and reference designs that other engineers adopt across engagements

AI-Assisted Solution Delivery

• Use AI coding assistants as your primary development environment for day-to-day solution building — from prototyping through production implementation
• Build and maintain custom plugins/skills for your AI coding assistant that package reusable capabilities for recurring problems across teams
• Redesign and rebuild data pipelines and data flows to unblock use cases — including source integration, transformation logic, and downstream delivery
• Deploy and operate AI agents in production via AWS Bedrock AgentCore
• Translate ambiguous business requirements from stakeholders into concrete technical solutions with minimal hand-holding
• Balance speed of delivery with enterprise standards — your prototypes are production-ready, not throwaway
• Develop intuitive front-end interfaces and dashboards that bring data and AI outputs to life for business users

AI Agent Development

• Design, build, and deploy AI agents and multi-agent systems that automate complex workflows end-to-end
• Develop and maintain agent skills and plugins — discrete, reusable capabilities that compose into larger agentic pipelines
• Implement and extend Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and clients to connect agents with enterprise tools, APIs, and data sources
• Design evaluation harnesses, guardrails, and monitoring pipelines to ensure agent reliability and safety in production on AgentCore
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving agentic AI landscape (AI coding assistants, AgentCore, MCP ecosystem) and proactively bring new techniques to the practice

Practice Leadership & Technical Strategy

• Define and evolve delivery practices and playbooks used across multiple cross-functional teams
• Serve as the technical escalation point for the most ambiguous or high-stakes problems across the portfolio
• Provide direct input to the hiring manager on recurring patterns and roadmap priorities based on field signal
• Mentor and elevate other engineers on AI-assisted agentic development, plugin design, and rapid delivery

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Embed directly with multiple cross-functional teams simultaneously to co-define problems and co-deliver solutions
• Influence technical direction and build alignment across teams without relying on formal authority
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical business stakeholders — in writing, in meetings, and in presentations
• Foster a collaborative, low-ego culture where speed and quality go hand in hand

Qualifications

Required:

• 8–12+ years of software engineering experience, with substantial time in customer-facing or embedded technical delivery roles
• Strong software architecture background — able to independently design and defend system architecture across varied tools and platforms, not tied to one stack
• Direct hands-on experience using AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as a primary development workflow; experience building custom plugins/skills for these tools is a strong plus
• Direct, hands-on experience building and deploying AI agents on AWS Bedrock AgentCore — required
• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) server/client implementation — required
• Data engineering experience — building and redesigning data pipelines and data flows across varied sources
• Full-stack development proficiency — backend services, APIs, and front-end interfaces/dashboards
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and defining technical standards adopted beyond your own work
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to manage multiple concurrent internal stakeholder relationships

This position does not provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.

Estimated compensation for this position:

160,000.00 – 250,000.00 USD per year

This range is an estimate and actual compensation may differ. Final compensation packages are determined by various considerations including but not limited to candidate qualifications, location, market conditions, and internal considerations.

Location:

Remote –Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX, San Francisco, CA

If this job description resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet all the requirements. We're interested in getting to know you and what you bring to the table!

Personalized benefits that support personal well-being and growth:

JLL recognizes the impact that the workplace can have on your wellness, so we offer a supportive culture and comprehensive benefits package that prioritizes mental, physical and emotional health. Some of these benefits may include:

• 401(k) plan with matching company contributions
• Comprehensive Medical, Dental & Vision Care
• Paid parental leave at 100% of salary
• Paid Time Off and Company Holidays
• Early access to earned wages through Daily Pay