Applied AI Solution Engineer - Kearney Activate

About Kearney Activate

Kearney Activate is the business acceleration and enablement arm of Kearney Management Consulting, helping clients accelerate transformation through data, platforms, and AI. Our work spans strategy, technology, and execution, supporting clients as they implement and scale solutions across CRM, planning, analytics, and AI-enabled capabilities. We partner with leading platforms including Salesforce, Anaplan, and modern analytics and AI technologies to help organisations drive adoption, realise value, and sustain change.

We operate across four key focus areas:

• Advisory & Assurance Services: Driving strategy, governance, and change management to ensure impactful transformation.
• Platform & Technology Enablement: Supporting implementation and adoption of enterprise platforms such as Salesforce and Anaplan.
• AI & Innovation Enablement: Supporting the rollout and adoption of AI-enabled solutions and new ways of working.

Position Overview

As a Junior Applied AI Solution Engineer, you will work as part of cross-functional teams to design, build, and deploy AI-driven applications, particularly those leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), agents, and other modern AI techniques. This is a hands-on, client-facing engineering role where you will contribute to solution design, development, testing, and delivery. You will work closely with senior engineers and client teams, gaining exposure to real-world AI solution engineering. As you grow in the role, you will take on more ownership, from end-to-end delivery to advising clients on AI opportunities and best practices.

Our teams primarily build solutions using existing foundational models (closed and open-source), sometimes with light fine-tuning. We do not train foundational models from scratch.

Your Responsibilities

• AI Solution Development: Assist in building AI-powered applications, especially those involving LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, and autonomous agents. Support the design and hands-on implementation of end-to-end solutions with guidance from senior engineers. Help integrate AI components into microservices, APIs, and client-facing applications.
• Agent & Workflow Development: Support the creation of multi-step reasoning agents using LangGraph or LangChain Agents. Implement tool-calling, memory, and routing logic. Evaluate agent behaviour and improve reliability over iterations. Participate in conversations with clients to understand their challenges, use cases, and requirements. Help translate business needs into feasible AI/ML solution components. Support senior engineers in presenting solution concepts and explaining AI capabilities in accessible terms.
• Technical Problem-Solving: Contribute to solving technical issues encountered during development and implementation. Identify blockers and escalate complex challenges to senior engineers and R&D teams. Assist in documenting learnings and reusable patterns for future solutions.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work collaboratively with technical and non-technical teams to ensure solutions are aligned with client expectations. Provide input into product, data, and design discussions where AI components affect the user experience. Stay informed about new models, AI tools, frameworks, and best practices. Proactively learn new technologies and explore innovative ways to apply AI to real-world problems. Experiment with new open-source models, orchestration frameworks, and retrieval techniques. Share findings and help improve team practices.

Who You Are

You have hands-on experience or strong foundational knowledge in several of the following areas:

• Python programming and data technologies (SQL, APIs, basic data pipelines).
• Building small-scale microservices or automation scripts.
• Working with LLM APIs (Azure OpenAI, Gemini, Hugging Face, Anthropic).
• Exposure to GenAI concepts (prompting, embeddings, finetuning, vector search).
• Basic experience with RAG development and knowledge retrieval.
• Understanding of model fine-tuning, vector stores, embeddings concepts.
• Ability to design simple solution architectures using Python & cloud tools.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving mindset.
• Willingness to learn new technologies when the project requires it.

Client-Facing Mindset: Even at a junior level, you should feel comfortable and excited to grow in these areas:

• Communicating clearly with non-technical audiences.
• Translating business needs into technical requirements (with support).
• Understanding business processes and identifying where AI can add value.
• Adaptable & Self-Motivated: You are proactive, resourceful, and able to operate independently with minimal handholding.
• Passionate & Positive: You are genuinely excited about AI and its potential to transform industries.
• Creative & Curious: You keep up with AI developments and enjoy experimenting with new tools and methods.
• Ethical & Responsible: You understand the importance of safe, fair, and responsible AI implementation.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with building data pipelines, preparing and indexing datasets, and implementing embedding generation and retrieval evaluation for GenAI applications.
• Exposure to MLOps, Docker, CI/CD, or cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Hands-on work with agent workflows or multi-step reasoning models.
• “Vibe coding” skills - fast prototyping, AI-assisted development, improvisational coding.

Why Join?

• Strategic Impact: Shape the commercial growth engine of one of Kearney’s fastest-growing digital businesses.
• Collaborative Ecosystem: Work with top technology partners and world-class consulting teams.
• Growth & Development: Access Kearney’s global learning programs and partner certifications.
• Culture: Join a hands-on, high-energy, and inclusive environment focused on innovation and impact.
• Purpose: Help global enterprises unlock value through trusted data foundations, AI enablement, and digital transformation.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Non-discrimination

Kearney Activate prides itself on providing a culture that allows employees to bring their best selves to work every day. Our people can feel comfortable, confident, and joyful to do great things for our firm, our teams, and our clients. Kearney Activate aims to build diverse capabilities to help our clients solve their most mission critical problems. Kearney Activate is committed to building a diverse, unbiased and inclusive workforce. Kearney Activate is an equal opportunity employer; we recruit, hire, train, promote, develop, and provide other conditions of employment without regard to a person’s gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, disability, marital status, pregnancy status, veteran status, genetic information or any other differences consistent with applicable laws. This includes providing reasonable accommodation for disabilities, or religious beliefs and practices. Members of communities historically underrepresented in analytics and consulting are encouraged to apply.