Forward Deployed AI Engineer Sr - Analytics

Dayforce; Oregon; Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k plan (plus match)

Unlimited Time Away From Work

Paid US holidays

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Dayforce is a global human capital management (HCM) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with operations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region.

Our award-winning Cloud HCM platform offers a unified solution database and continuous calculation engine, driving efficiency, productivity and compliance for the global workforce.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software/analytics engineering or AI
• Experience deploying production AI/ML solutions
• Strong Python, SQL and API expertise
• Ability to translate business needs into technical designs

Responsibilities

• Partner with analytics teams to identify AI use cases
• Translate business needs into technical requirements and designs
• Deliver AI use cases from discovery to production
• Improve solution accuracy and adoption using feedback
• Evaluate simpler alternatives when AI isn’t the best fit

Skills

Python

SQL

AI/ML engineering

Data pipelines

APIs

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

Tools

Azure OpenAI

Azure AI Foundry

OpenAI

Databricks

Power BI

Job description

Dayforce is a global human capital management (HCM) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with operations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. Our award-winning Cloud HCM platform offers a unified solution database and continuous calculation engine, driving efficiency, productivity and compliance for the global workforce. Our brand promise - Makes Work Life Better Reflects our commitment to employees, customers, partners and communities globally.

About the opportunityWe are looking for a Senior Forward Deployed AI Engineer, Analytics to partner directly with analytics teams and business stakeholders to turn high-value analytical problems into practical, trustworthy AI solutions. This hands‑on role helps move the organization beyond static dashboards toward conversational analytics, intelligent insights, and AI‑enabled decision support.

What you’ll get to do

• Partner directly with analytics and business teams to understand decisions, workflows, pain points, and analytical questions that AI can help address.
• Translate business needs into clear technical requirements, solution designs, prototypes, and production‑ready AI experiences.
• Independently deliver assigned AI use cases from discovery through user validation, deployment, and ongoing improvement, escalating material architecture, security, or platform decisions when needed.
• Use feedback and usage data to improve solution accuracy, relevance, reliability, and adoption.
• Recommend simpler alternatives, including BI, analytics, automation, or workflow improvements, when AI is not the best fit.

AI-Powered and Conversational Analytics

• Build conversational analytics experiences that allow authorized users to ask natural‑language questions of trusted enterprise data.
• Develop AI assistants and agentic workflows that retrieve business context, query governed analytical data, interpret results, and provide understandable responses.
• Build capabilities that identify trends, anomalies, risks, opportunities, and recommended actions under established business and technical guardrails.
• Integrate AI‑generated insights into existing analytics tools, applications, and workflows so they are available where decisions are made.
• Apply judgment to determine when predictive analytics, generative AI, agents, or a combination of approaches is appropriate.

Enterprise Context and Semantic Intelligence

• Use semantic models, business definitions, metrics, metadata, and relationships to ground AI solutions in trusted enterprise context.
• Implement retrieval and context patterns across structured data, documents, knowledge bases, and approved enterprise information sources.
• Work with data architects, governance specialists, and analytics teams to identify gaps in data quality, semantic clarity, lineage, or access that affect AI reliability.
• Ensure AI responses can be traced to appropriate enterprise data sources and business definitions when required.

Agentic Analytics Engineering

• Develop AI agents and workflows using approved orchestration frameworks, enterprise AI services, APIs, and data platforms.
• Implement tool calling, retrieval‑augmented generation, vector or semantic retrieval, and secure API or MCP integrations using established enterprise patterns.
• Enable agents to interact securely with semantic models, datasets, knowledge sources, and enterprise services within a user’s authorized access.
• Apply appropriate human review and approval controls for high‑impact insights, recommendations, and actions.

Prototype to Production Delivery

• Rapidly build and test prototypes to validate user value, feasibility, and trust before broader investment.
• Define and measure practical success criteria such as response quality, adoption, productivity, decision cycle time, or business impact.
• Engineer approved solutions for production reliability, scalability, security, observability, and supportability using enterprise standards.
• Develop automated tests and evaluation scenarios for AI‑generated responses, including analytical accuracy, grounding, and relevance.
• Monitor solution performance, latency, cost, failures, feedback, and adoption; diagnose issues and implement improvements within established support practices.

Governance and Platform Partnership

• Use enterprise‑approved models, platforms, security patterns, connectors, and reusable components rather than creating isolated point solutions.
• Apply established Responsible AI, privacy, security, data governance, identity, and authorization requirements throughout solution delivery.
• Partner with Enterprise AI Platform, Security, Privacy, Legal, and Data Governance teams to address exceptions, risks, and complex integration needs.
• Document reusable implementation patterns and provide feedback from deployments to improve shared platform capabilities and standards.
• Communicate technical options, tradeoffs, progress, and risks clearly to technical and business partners; advise stakeholders on difficult implementation matters within the role’s area of expertise.

Skills and experience we value

• Typically 5 or more years of related experience with a Bachelor's degree, 3 or more years with a Master's degree, or equivalent practical experience in software engineering, data engineering, analytics engineering, AI or ML engineering, data science, or a related field.
• Hands‑on experience building and deploying production data, analytics, AI, or Generative AI solutions.
• Strong Python, SQL, and software engineering skills, including APIs, testing, version control, and CI/CD practices.
• Working knowledge of LLMs, retrieval‑augmented generation, AI agents, tool calling, embeddings, vector search, semantic retrieval, and enterprise knowledge integration.
• Experience with one or more enterprise AI services or platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, or comparable technologies.
• Experience working with analytical data platforms, warehouses or lakehouses, semantic models, APIs, and BI technologies such as Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Databricks, Snowflake, or equivalent.
• Understanding of semantic and dimensional modeling, business metrics, metadata, data quality, lineage, and governed data access.
• Experience applying authentication, authorization, RBAC, identity propagation, and secure access practices to AI or data solutions.
• Understanding of LLMOps or MLOps concepts, including deployment, evaluation, monitoring, observability, and production support.
• Ability to work independently through diverse technical problems, adapt established approaches when appropriate, and seek guidance at key decision points.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to work effectively with senior business and technical stakeholders.

What would make you stand out

• You have taken an AI or analytics solution from business discovery through prototype, user testing, production deployment, and adoption.
• You can work comfortably with both business stakeholders and technical teams, translating between decisions, data, and implementation details.
• You have built conversational analytics or AI‑enabled decision support on top of governed enterprise data.
• You understand why semantic context, data quality, lineage, and access controls are essential to trustworthy enterprise AI.
• You are pragmatic about using the simplest technology that solves the business problem and can explain tradeoffs clearly.
• You share lessons learned and reusable patterns that help other teams deliver AI solutions more effectively.

What’s in it for you

Dayforce is fueled by the diversity of our talented employees. We are an equal opportunity employer and consider and embrace ALL individuals and what makes them unique. We believe our employees should be happy and healthy, with peace of mind and a sense of fulfillment.We encourage individuals to apply based on their passions.Dayforce employees and their families are eligible to participate in the following benefits programs: medical, dental, vison, and life insurance. Dayforce employees are also eligible to participate in a 401k plan (plus match). Employees also receive unlimited Time Away From Work (in lieu of accrued vacation time), 10 paid US holidays, up to 80 hours of paid sick time and 17 weeks of paid parental leave, subject to the terms of the applicable policy or program.With a commitment to community impact, including volunteer days and our charity, Dayforce Cares we provide opportunities for you to thrive both in your career and personal life. Our focus is not just on your job but on supporting you to be the best version of yourself.

About the Salary Ranges

Please note that the salary range mentioned in this job description should serve simply as a guide. The final compensation offered may vary based on a variety of factors, including bonuses and/or incentives, or a candidate's experience, skills, budget and location. Our company is committed to providing a fair, equitable, and competitive package that reflects the value an individual brings to the organization.