Forward Deployment AI Engineer IV

TALENT Software Services; Saint Paul (MN); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

TALENT Software Services seeks a Forward Deployment AI Engineer IV to drive AI-enabled solutions in global supply chain and sourcing. You will translate workflows into production-ready apps, ontologies, validation logic, and documentation while collaborating with product owners and SMEs.

70% coding with significant stakeholder engagement, in a hybrid environment. The role requires translating complex requirements into scalable systems, and delivering measurable business outcomes for life

Qualifications

• Software engineering degree required.
• Experience translating ambiguous requirements into technical specs, app behavior, validation logic, and deployable solutions.
• Hands-on experience building with LLMs and AI agents in production systems.
• Ability to document technical decisions, design logic, assumptions, dependencies, and support requirements clearly.

Responsibilities

• Embed with business operators to understand workflows, constraints, and friction translating problems into high-value technical opportunities.
• Prototype and iterate solutions using ontologies, AI, and custom engineering; scale proven patterns into robust systems.
• Design end-to-end workflows connecting ontology objects, data integrations, models, and applications into coherent solutions.
• Deploy AI capabilities in a regulated industry and collaborate with INFRA teams and external engineers.
• Diagnose and resolve complex system behaviors across data pipelines, ontologies, apps, and deployment environments.

Skills

Systems thinking

AI integration

Prototype development

Stakeholder engagement

Technical documentation

Problem solving

Cross-functional collaboration

Agile practices

Data pipelines

Debugging

Mentoring

Education

Software Engineering degree

Tools

TypeScript

Node.js

React

Next.js

Python

Job description

Description: Hybrid position - 3 days onsite, AH
Job title: Forward Deployment AI Engineer IV

• NEW REQ IMPORTANT: Max PR is *** per budget, Mgr. Anything that exceeds this amount will be disqualified.

Possible extension -
Possible temp to hire for the right individual and if budget is approved.
About position:
As a forward deployed AI engineer, you will serve as an embedded technical expert supporting the development, deployment, and sustainment of AI-enabled solutions across ***’s global supply chain and sourcing organizations. This role will partner closely with other forward deployed AI engineers, internal product owners, subject matter experts, and end users to co-develop scalable solutions that deliver meaningful business outcomes for a company that builds life-saving medical devices.
The organization will empower its Forward Deployed AI Engineers to address high levels of complexity and own the composition of solutions. The Forward Deployment AI Engineer will be responsible for translating workflow needs into production-ready applications, pipelines, ontology objects, validation logic, and technical documentation. This role will be key in executing against the executive-approved strategic supply chain and sourcing digital roadmap.
Purpose of the Role
Operate as ***’s forward deployment AI engineer to ensure key global supply chain and sourcing use cases move from requirements gathering through production deployment with clear ownership, technical documentation, validation, and ongoing support.
Approximately 70% coding and 30% stakeholder engagement
Key Responsibilities
Solution Development & Technical Execution

• Embed directly with business operators to deeply understand their workflows, constraints, incentives, failure modes, and sources of friction translating ambiguous problems into solvable, high-value technical opportunities across application behavior, data logic, technical specifications, and validation criteria
• Rapidly prototype and iterate solutions using ontologies, AI, and custom engineering building just enough to validate direction, then scaling the proven patterns into robust systems.
• Design end-to-end workflows that connect ontology objects, data integrations, models, and applications into coherent operational solutions that deliver measurable outcomes.
• Deploy bleeding-edge AI capabilities in a regulated industry, and build alongside external forward deployed engineers, technical experts in scaling technologies and AI leaders.
• Diagnose and resolve complex system behaviors across data pipelines, ontologies, applications, and deployment environments, often in real time with frontline business stakeholders.
• Own the technical execution of assigned sourcing and supply chain use cases from requirements gathering through production deployment.
• Build, configure, test, and refine application functionality in partnership with product owners, sourcing SMEs, process leads, and end users.
• Partner with internal data teams and external technical resources focused on the data platform to identify data gaps, pipeline issues, system constraints, and application defects related to data hydration.
• Contribute to reusable patterns, logic, and documentation in lockstep with INFRA teams that can accelerate future sourcing and supply chain use cases.

Business Validation & Stakeholder Partnership

• Serve as the tactical connective tissue between business and engineering, converting operational insights into structured requirements, architecture decisions, and delivery priorities to then build.
• Facilitate clear feedback loops between technical teams and business stakeholders to ensure user needs are accurately reflected in delivered solutions.
• Partner with users to confirm applications reflect real-world processes, decision points, and compliance requirements. Help turn prototype feedback into prioritized technical changes, defects, enhancements, or product decisions.
• Validate application behavior and data logic with SMEs, end users, and product owners.
• Support user acceptance testing, application readiness, production validation, and post-deployment issue resolution.
• Champion operational excellence and velocity, ensuring engineering choices support maintainability, ontology coherence, security guardrails, and sustainable adoption—not one-off heroics or brittle prototypes.

Persona Summary
They will be a key player in shaping the next generation of sourcing through AI-enabled applications, connected workflows, ontology-driven design, and scalable operating patterns
This person must be comfortable operating at the intersection of vision and execution. They need to think like a product leader, build like an engineer, challenge like a strategist, and motivate like a change agent. They should be energized by ambiguity, inspired by possibility, and disciplined enough to convert bold ideas into production-ready solutions.
Core Identity
The ideal FDE is someone who sees sourcing not as a series of disconnected categories, tools, and workflows, but as an ecosystem waiting to be orchestrated.
They understand that each application, feature, data object, intake capability, and decision workflow is an instrument in a larger symphony. Their job is to help bring those instruments together in harmony through simplicity, creativity, and feasibility.
They are drawn to big, transformational work. They want to help build a “one pane of glass” experience that connects categories, users, decisions, data, automation, and execution in a way that feels intuitive, scalable, and valuable.
They do not need every answer at the start. In fact, they thrive when the questions are still forming.
What This Person Believes
This person believes that great technology is not created by building isolated features. It is created by deeply understanding how people work, where friction lives, what decisions matter, and how data, AI, workflow, and user experience can come together to create measurable business outcomes.
They believe business users should not have to chase disconnected systems, duplicate work, or interpret fragmented signals. They believe the future sourcing ecosystem should feel connected, intelligent, and purposeful.
Signature Traits
Visionary Systems Thinker
They can see the broader operating ecosystem before it is fully defined. They can connect category strategy, demand intake, sourcing workflows, user experience, data architecture, AI capabilities, and business outcomes into a coherent future-state vision.
They do not get lost in individual tickets or isolated build requests.
They constantly ask:
How does this fit into the larger ecosystem?
What pattern are we creating?
Will this scale beyond one category?
What does the user actually need to accomplish?
Are we building a feature, or are we building a foundation?
They are especially valuable because the role requires designing end-to-end workflows that connect ontology objects, data integrations, models, and applications into coherent operational solutions that deliver measurable outcomes. 1
Strong Business Acumen in Sourcing
This person understands sourcing as a business discipline, not just a technology domain. They can speak the language of sourcing users, category teams, procurement operations, supplier management, contracts, compliance, invoice workflows, and enterprise systems.
They understand that sourcing is not just about moving work through a system. It is about enabling better decisions, better visibility, stronger governance, improved user experience, and measurable value across a significant portfolio.
They can challenge business partners respectfully because they understand the work deeply enough to ask better questions.
Concept-to-Masterpiece Builder
This person can take a rough idea, a whiteboard sketch, a conversation, or a half-formed opportunity and transform it into something tangible, useful, and exceptional.
They are not intimidated by ambiguity. They are activated by it.
The job description specifically calls for experience translating ambiguous business requirements into technical specifications, application behavior, validation logic, and deployable solutions.
They can move from:
What if we had one pane of glass for sourcing?
to:
Here is the workflow model, the ontology structure, the data dependencies, the prototype, the validation logic, the user feedback loop, and the roadmap to scale it.
They can rapidly prototype and iterate using ontologies, AI, and custom engineering, building enough to validate direction and then scaling proven patterns into robust systems.
Leader Without Needing Authority
This person leads through clarity, confidence, curiosity, and momentum. They do not wait for permission to create forward motion. They bring structure where there is uncertainty and energy where there is complexity.
They motivate engineers, product owners, SMEs, sourcing users, and leaders by helping everyone see what is possible and how to get there.
They are a conductor. They know each person, system, workflow, and capability has a role to play. Their strength is helping the team perform together.
The role requires serving as tactical connective tissue between business and engineering, converting operational insights into structured requirements, architecture decisions, and delivery priorities.
Creative Critical Thinker
This person has the ability to challenge assumptions, pressure-test ideas, identify risks, and still produce creative solutions.
They use critical thinking not to slow the team down, but to make the work stronger.
They ask:
What are we assuming?
Where could this break?
What user behavior are we designing around?
What data quality risk exists?
What would make this easier for the business?
What pattern can we reuse?
What would make this feel simple?
The job description emphasizes diagnosing and resolving complex system behaviors across data pipelines, ontologies, applications, and deployment environments, often in real time with frontline business stakeholders.
Self-Starter With Ownership Mentality
This person does not need every task broken into perfect detail. They can identify what needs to happen, create a path, pull the right people together, and move.
They own outcomes, not just assignments.
They document decisions, identify dependencies, manage assumptions, validate logic, and help move use cases from idea to production. The job description calls for clear ownership, technical documentation, validation, and ongoing support from requirements gathering through production deployment.
They take pride in building things that last, not just things that demo well.
The “Masterpiece” Standard
The right person will understand your speech immediately.
They will understand that this work is not just about building a demand intake application, a workbench, or another category workflow. It is about helping create the future operating ecosystem for sourcing.
They will treat every build decision through the lens of:
Simplicity
Can the experience be easier, clearer, and more intuitive for users?
Creativity
Are we imagining what the future could be, or simply digitizing today’s process?
Feasibility
Can this actually scale, sustain, integrate, and deliver value?
They will help the team push beyond boundaries while staying grounded in what can be built, validated, deployed, and adopted.
What They Must Be Great At
Strategic Translation
They can hear a business problem and translate it into a technical opportunity.
Ecosystem Design
They can connect applications, workflows, data, AI, user roles, and decision points into a logical operating model.
Technical Execution
They can build, configure, test, troubleshoot, and refine solutions.
Stakeholder Partnership
They can work with sourcing users, SMEs, product owners, external FDEs, internal data teams, and leaders.
Creative Problem-Solving
They can create elegant solutions where the path is not obvious.
Operational Judgment
They know when to prototype quickly, when to harden a solution, when to simplify, and when to challenge scope.
Leadership Energy
They make the team better by bringing clarity, urgency, optimism, and discipline.
Required Skills & Qualifications
Software Engineering degree required

• Working knowledge of, or strong aptitude to learn, market leading data and execution platform capabilities.
• 2-4 years of (intense) softmarket-leadingware engineering experience
• Proven track record as an expert-level individual contributor
• Software engineering background with proficiency in Expertise in TypeScript, Node.js, React, and Next.js or similar packages/languages/frameworks and Python
• Hands-on experience building with LLMs and AI agents in production systems
• Deep understanding of repository architecture and management
• Familiarity with the developer tools ecosystem VSCode extensions, CLIs, and third-party integrations
• Experience translating ambiguous business requirements into technical specifications, application behavior, validation logic, and deployable solutions.
• Strong problem-solving skills and comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving project environments.
• Ability to document technical decisions, design logic, assumptions, dependencies, and support requirements clearly.
• Demonstrated ability to partner across technical, business, and external consulting teams.

Preferred Skills & Experience

• Experience working in supply chain, sourcing, procurement, contract management, invoice management, supplier management, or compliance-related workflows.
• Familiarity with enterprise systems such as Ariba, SAP, ERP platforms, data warehouses, or related procurement/supply chain applications.
• Experience supporting production applications, troubleshooting data issues, and validating user-facing application behavior.
• Exposure to ontology design, object-oriented data modeling, workflow automation, or AI-enabled business applications.
• Experience working in agile, sprint-based, or product-oriented delivery environments.
• Ability to communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to business stakeholders and leadership.

Quality Systems Duties and Responsibilities:
Build Quality into all aspects of their work by maintaining compliance to all quality requirements.