Principal Consultant, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineer

Grow with us. Lead with us. At Pioneer, you’ll work directly with executive teams, solving complex problems and shaping strategies that reset what’s possible. Sometimes the work is headline-worthy. Sometimes it’s foundational. But every project earns trust – and earns us the right to take on more. You’ll get the kind of access, challenge, and growth found at big firms – while helping build a company that’s scaling fast and guided by what we value. If you’re looking for meaning, momentum, and a seat at the table, you’re in the right place. As a Principal Consultant, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Engineer, you will play a leading role in shaping how our clients harness AI to reset what’s possible — setting strategy, architecting solutions, and delivering AI applications that move the needle on real business outcomes. You are a senior, self-driven management consultant who excels at guiding executive teams through complex transformations by pairing strategic clarity with technology and execution excellence. In this role, you will serve as a trusted advisor to C‑suite stakeholders while also acting as a hands‑on builder — designing, developing, and deploying AI and ML solutions on modern data platforms (Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, and Snowflake) and within hyperscaler ecosystems, with a strong preference for Azure. Your work will span classical machine learning, agentic AI systems, chatbots and custom copilots, RAG‑based applications, and enterprise adoption strategies for our clients. You bring a strong consulting presence paired with a deep technical foundation — leading client engagements, managing project teams, and owning solutions end to end, from executive workshop through prototype, production deployment, and adoption. You are equally comfortable architecting classical ML pipelines, standing up agentic AI systems, and guiding clients through build‑vs‑buy and platform decisions across the modern data and AI stack. Responsibilities Serve as a client‑facing leader on AI engagements – advising executive stakeholders on AI strategy, capability roadmaps, build vs. buy decisions, platform selection, and adoption, while translating ambitious business goals into pragmatic, sequenced AI investment plans. Lead the end‑to‑end design, development, and deployment of AI and ML solutions for clients – including classical machine learning models, agentic AI systems, chatbots, custom copilots, and RAG‑based applications – primarily on Azure, with working fluency in AWS or GCP as needed. Architect and build solutions hands‑on across modern data platforms (Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake) and AI services; own design across data pipelines, model development and deployment, prompt and agent design, vector retrieval, integration, security, and responsible AI – ensuring solutions are intuitive, scalable, and production‑ready. Integrate AI applications with enterprise data sources, CRM systems, operational platforms, and APIs (REST, GraphQL) ensuring solutions are robust, secure, governed, and sustainable at scale. Rapidly deliver POCs and MVPs to validate ideas and assumptions using agile development approaches, and build reusable accelerators and reference architectures that scale across engagements. Coach clients and Pioneer team members on AI capabilities, drive adoption of the tools you build, and mentor consultants– collaborating with strategists, developers, and change practitioners to deliver cohesive, responsibly‑designed AI systems. Lead client engagements end to end– managing project teams, owning delivery and quality, navigating executive stakeholders, and bringing the consulting rigor and structured problem‑solving that Pioneer is known for. Help grow Pioneer’s AI practice by contributing to thought leadership, points of view, account growth, and the development of repeatable offerings; stay ahead of evolving AI technologies, Copilot extensions, LLM advancements, and responsible AI best practices. Requirements 7+ years in consulting, data engineering, analytics, or AI solution delivery, with proven ownership of client‑facing technical workstreams, production‑ready AI/ML outcomes, and experience leading engagements and managing project teams. Strong hands‑on development in Python, with deep experience in data transformation, modeling, and machine learning; SQL familiarity is a plus but not required. Hands‑on experience with modern data platforms – Databricks and/or Microsoft Fabric strongly preferred, Snowflake also valued – including building data pipelines and supporting AI/ML workloads on top of them. Hands‑on experience in a major hyperscaler – Azure strongly preferred (including Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, and related AI services); AWS or GCP experience also acceptable. Proven experience designing and implementing RAG and agentic/multi‑agent architectures, including prompt engineering, tool calling, and structured outputs; working knowledge of vector databases (e.g., Azure AI Search, pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate) and LLM lifecycle concerns (evaluation, versioning, monitoring, cost). Proven experience developing and deploying custom AI and ML solutions in production environments, including model training, evaluation, versioning, monitoring, and inference; solid ML fundamentals (feature engineering, model selection, pipelines) with hands‑on experience using frameworks such as scikit‑learn, PyTorch, or MLflow. Strong consulting presence: prior management consulting experience, with the ability to translate ambiguous business problems into clear technical designs, facilitate working sessions with senior stakeholders, and lead engagements and technical teams. Proficiency with AI‑native development environments and IDE agent platforms such as Cursor, Claude Desktop, or equivalent tools; demonstrated use of these environments to accelerate code authoring, refactoring, and solution delivery. Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices for AI/ML workloads (e.g., automated testing, deployment pipelines, model lifecycle management in production). Hands‑on experience with low‑code and no‑code AI tools (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Claude Desktop, Copilot Studio) to prototype, augment, and accelerate solution delivery alongside traditional development. Preferred: experience with master data and/or ERP systems (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Dynamics365, NetSuite); familiarity with AI capabilities embedded in enterprise platforms (e.g., Salesforce Einstein, Dynamics365 Copilots, ServiceNow AI); Power Platform and Copilot Studio experience (custom copilots, plugins, connectors); background in regulated or asset‑intensive industries (utilities, energy, manufacturing, financial services); prior contribution to AI strategy or enterprise AI enablement; SQL experience for data transformation and analytics. Location Must be local to Minneapolis, MN or Denver, CO for flexible, hybrid schedule. Benefits The estimated salary range for this role is $123,000-212,000 annually. This is based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skillset and years and depth of experience. This may differ from location to location. Bonuses and other incentives are awarded at the Company’s discretion and are based upon individual contributions and overall company performance. Pioneer is proud to offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes meaningful time off and paid holidays, parental leave, 401(k) including employer match, tuition reimbursement, and a broad range of health and welfare benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, long and short‑term disability, etc. #J-18808-Ljbffr