FDE AI Consultant

Job Purpose

The Forward Deployment Engineer bridges production AI systems and complex enterprise operations across heavy-asset industries. Working side-by-side with executive leadership (Directors of Projects/Operations, COOs, Heads of Commercials & Engineering), you will design, prototype, and operationalize high-reliability AI-native workflows that accelerate multi-stage project bidding, contract risk analysis, technical document extraction, supply chain tracking, and capital project execution.

This high-visibility, technical-consulting role demands strategic business fluency and hands-on technical execution: turning unstructured operational bottlenecks across capital-intensive sectors into deterministic software systems and automated agent loops that deliver measurable margin and cycle-time improvements.

Key Responsibilities

Executive Engagement & Problem Discovery

• Partner directly with enterprise CXOs and project leaders across heavy-asset sectors to identify operational bottlenecks and map high-ROI AI deployment roadmaps.
• Translate complex field operations, commercial tenders, compliance mandates, and cross-functional reviews into clear technical specs and functional system architectures.

Rapid Solution Architecture & Deployment

• Build, configure, and ship production-ready agentic workflows, deterministic data pipelines, and structured extraction systems for complex enterprise assets (e.g., technical specifications, RFPs, commercial contracts, regulatory filings, vendor variations).
• Integrate deployed tools cleanly into enterprise backbones, including legacy ERPs (SAP/Oracle), project portfolio tools (e.g., Primavera P6), asset management systems, and internal data lakes.

Adoption, Change Enablement & Scaling

• Own the complete deployment lifecycle from 4-week pilot delivery to multi-site or company-wide operational rollout.
• Run hands-on user enablement, conduct workflow audits, eliminate adoption friction across operational teams, and instrument telemetry to verify time, cost, and risk reductions.

Governance, Reliability & Auditability

• Implement strict human-in-the-loop (HITL) checkpoints and rigorous evaluation benchmarks to eliminate hallucinations, ensuring compliance with mission-critical industrial, safety, and commercial standards.

Measures of Success

• Speed to Value: Functional, production-grade pilot deployed within 46 weeks of discovery.
• Adoption Depth: High weekly active engagement and sustained replacement of legacy manual engineering, reporting, or review workflows.
• Quantifiable ROI: Measurable cycle-time reduction in bid responses, change-order tracking, technical audits, or material reconciliations.
• Client Trust: Strong executive endorsement leading to portfolio-wide expansion across client business units.

Qualifications & Experience

• Experience: 23 years in business analysis, technical product management, solution architecture, or software engineering with strong product thinking and business acumen.
• AI-Native Systems & Architecture:

i. Hands-on experience building stateful, graph-based agent workflows and deterministic control loops (e.g., state machines, LangGraph, modern agent SDKs) over brittle prompt chains.

ii. Practical implementation of protocol-driven tool integration (MCP / Model Context Protocol), strict structured outputs (JSON schema/Pydantic), and sandboxed agent execution.

iii. Strong foundation in eval-driven engineering (synthetic benchmarks, trajectory tracing, regression testing) and robust human-in-the-loop (HITL) guardrails for zero-tolerance enterprise data.

• Technical Breadth: Strong proficiency in Python, SQL, REST/JSON-RPC protocols, and event-driven data architectures.
• Executive Presence: Exceptional communication skills with the ability to lead executive workshops, challenge assumptions tactfully, and distill complex technical trade-offs for non-technical leadership.
• Industry Familiarity (Recommended, Not Required): Prior exposure to EPC lifecycle stages, energy/utilities operations, manufacturing, project controls, or heavy-industrial contracting is an advantage; intellectual curiosity and rapid domain absorption are paramount.