Forward Deployed AI Strategist

Location: San Francisco (5 days a week in-office, relocation support available)

Compensation

Base salary range of $140,000 to $280,000, plus competitive equity.

About our client

Our client is an early-stage AI firm building agentic systems that take over the manual coordination work running inside billion-dollar enterprises. Founded by ex-Meta and AWS engineers, the company is already in production with major enterprise customers and seeing strong inbound demand. The team is small and roughly doubling in the next couple of months, so this hire's judgment will directly shape how the playbooks, patterns, and platform evolve.

Role overview

The Forward Deployed AI Strategist will embed with enterprise clients, run forensic workflow audits, and translate complex business problems into AI solutions that actually ship. Think MBB engagement manager meets AI operator: a high-ownership, client-facing strategy role for someone who is tired of recommendations that disappear into a void and wants to see their work run in production. The hire will own the full engagement loop, from the first C-suite conversation to a live running system.

Key responsibilities

• Run end-to-end discovery engagements with enterprise clients, mapping workflows, interviewing stakeholders, and delivering executive readouts to CFOs and COOs
• Translate ambiguous business problems into concrete specs that the engineering team can build and deploy
• Pre-sell the implementation phase by running audits so compelling that clients greenlight the full engagement
• Own client relationships from first conversation to live system handoff, with 10 to 20% travel to client sites
• Feed field learnings back into the firm's playbooks, patterns, and platform as the team scales

Required qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of experience in top-tier strategy consulting (McKinsey, Bain, or BCG)
• Must have owned engagements end-to-end, not just supported them
• Track record leading large-scale transformation, finance ops, or strategy work
• Strong executive presence and proven ability to lead meetings with C-suite stakeholders (CFOs, COOs, VPs), hold the room, and push back without losing the client
• First-principles problem solver who reasons from the actual business problem rather than a template
• AI-native: uses AI tools daily and has a genuine point of view on where agents work and where they don't
• Hands-on experience deploying AI tools or agents to automate end-to-end enterprise workflows
• Proficient in SQL, Python, and Excel/Sheets for data analysis, workflow modeling, and business case development
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco (relocation support available)

Schedule: Full-time Travel: 10 to 20% to client sites

Benefits

• 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage
• MacBook Pro setup
• Equity in a fast-scaling, revenue-generating AI firm

ExitOpp is a 3rd party recruiter contracted to help identify talent for this role.