Manager, Applied AI Engineer

Alvarez & Marsal; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare plans

401(k) retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Discretionary bonus

Job summary

Alvarez & Marsal in Houston seeks an experienced software/AI engineer to design, build and deploy AI-first workflows and skills within the GAIKO AI Lab. You will translate business needs into reusable skills and agents, mentor engineers, and shape production-grade AI platforms using MCP, LangGraph and other toolchains.

You will work with business leaders, data teams and engineers to scale end-to-end AI solutions, integrate with Microsoft stack, ensure governance and responsible AI practices, and

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering, data science, machine learning or applied AI engineering.
• 2+ years building and shipping LLM or agent-based systems in production
• Strong hands-on Python development experience
• Experience with MCP, agent frameworks and reusable skill design
• Experience in CI/CD, testing and observability for production systems

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery of applied AI solutions, from proof of concept to production.
• Partner with business unit leaders to translate needs into skills and agents.
• Work with KM and Data leads to gather requirements and translate them into designs.
• Design, build and operate headless skills and agentic workflows across platforms.

Skills

Python development

LLM / agent-based systems

CI/CD / observability

MCP framework

Production AI systems

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Cloud or AI certifications a plus

Tools

Claude Agent SDK

LangGraph

Semantic Kernel

SharePoint Online

Power Platform

SQL

Job description

About Alvarez & Marsal

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a global consulting firm with entrepreneurial, action- and results-oriented professionals. We take a hands-on approach to solving our clients' problems and helping them reach their potential. A&M is different by design: we give people ownership and impact from day one, fuel development through real opportunity, and provide direct access to leaders who invest in our growth. Our culture celebrates independent thinkers and doers who positively impact clients and shape our industry. Guided by A&M's core values of Integrity, Quality, Objectivity, Fun, Personal Reward, and Inclusive Diversity, our collaborative, globally minded environment is why our people love working at A&M.

Description

Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a global consulting firm with entrepreneurial, action- and results-oriented professionals. We take a hands-on approach to solving our clients' problems and helping them reach their potential. A&M is different by design: we give people ownership and impact from day one, fuel development through real opportunity, and provide direct access to leaders who invest in our growth. Our culture celebrates independent thinkers and doers who positively impact clients and shape our industry. Guided by A&M's core values of Integrity, Quality, Objectivity, Fun, Personal Reward, and Inclusive Diversity, our collaborative, globally minded environment is why our people love working at A&M.

The Team

The AI Lab Team sits within A&M's Global AI & Knowledge Organization (GAIKO). GAIKO brings together the firm's AI and Knowledge Management capabilities to put trusted, governed AI into everyday consulting work. The Lab’s job is to turn repeatable business workflows into scalable agents and AI skills. Many of these workflows run today on Microsoft tools such as SharePoint, Power Platform and Power BI, and the pod reworks them into AI-first solutions that can be reused across the firm. Others will be built from scratch as internal teams bring new requests.

In this role, you'll work closely with the leads of A&M's business units, the Knowledge Management (KM) and Data team leads, and the AI Skills lead and engineers, product partners and knowledge specialists across GAIKO. Together you'll design and build headless skills and agents: reusable capabilities that work behind the scenes and connect to the AI tools our professionals already use. You'll be the bridge between the business and the build: translating what each business unit needs into working skills and agents, and teaching the rest of the pod to do the same. As the pod's go-to technical expert for skills and agents, you'll report to the AI Skills Pod lead with technical direction from the Intelligence Layer tech lead. Your work will directly shape how thousands of A&M colleagues use AI in their work with clients.

The team is growing, the work is technically demanding, and priorities will move quickly, so this role requires sound judgment, adaptability, and a willingness to contribute wherever the build needs support. We're looking for a fast builder who can take an idea from prototype to working capability quickly, learn from feedback and keep momentum without sacrificing quality. Just as important, you make the people around you better. You teach, share knowledge openly, step in across workstreams when needed, and adjust quickly when priorities shift.

How You Will Contribute

• Own end-to-end delivery of applied AI solutions, from proof of concept to production: problem framing, build, deployment, monitoring and iteration.
• Partner with business unit leaders and their teams to understand how they work, translate their needs into skills and agents, and agree clear success metrics.
• Work with the Knowledge Management and Data team leads to gather and clarify requirements, and translate them into skill and agent designs.
• Partner with our Data Engineering, BIU, and Intelligence Layer teams so that solutions are built on reliable, production-grade data.
• Design, build and operate headless skills and agentic workflows, including multi-step orchestration, tool routing, retrieval, guardrails, evaluation and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Build and maintain automated skill-building pipelines (templates, scaffolding, testing and evaluation harnesses, packaging and deployment) so new skills can be created and released quickly and consistently.
• Build integrations with large language model platforms and use the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to make skills available to approved AI tools and the Intelligence Layer.
• Integrate structured and unstructured content from enterprise systems while preserving source permissions, metadata and governance requirements.
• Guide the team in assessing current Power Platform and wider Microsoft stack processes, reimagining them as AI-first workflows rather than one-to-one rebuilds, and converting them into, or connecting them to, skills and agents.
• Train the wider team on how to build skills, through workshops, playbooks, templates, worked examples and office hours.
• Mentor engineers through pairing, code and design reviews and hands-on coaching, raising the quality bar for skills and agents across the pod.
• Apply and help shape engineering standards for skills and agents, working with the Intelligence Layer tech lead, including evaluation, CI/CD, versioning, reproducibility and performance monitoring.
• Bring forward recommendations on tools, frameworks and design patterns. Technical decisions are made by the Intelligence Layer tech lead together with the Intelligence Layer lead.
• Support responsible AI use, including data privacy, client confidentiality, model risk and decisions about third-party models.
• Communicate results, tradeoffs, risks and blockers clearly to pod leadership, the Intelligence Layer tech lead, business unit leaders and senior stakeholders in business terms.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience
• Cloud or AI-related certifications are a plus

Must-Have Experience And Skills

• 5+ years in software engineering, data science, machine learning or applied AI engineering, including 2+ years building and shipping LLM or agent-based systems in production
• Strong hands-on Python development experience
• Experience building LLM and generative AI applications, including RAG, prompting, evaluation and agentic patterns
• Demonstrated track record of designing, building and shipping multiple AI agents and skills into production (examples or a portfolio will be discussed at interview)
• Experience building automated pipelines for creating, testing, evaluating and deploying skills or agents at scale
• Hands-on experience with MCP, agent frameworks (for example, Claude Agent SDK, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel or similar) and reusable skill design
• Experience with CI/CD, testing and observability for production systems

Nice to Have

• Experience with the Microsoft stack (SharePoint Online, Power Platform, Fabric/Power BI, Azure), including hands-on Power Automate and Power Apps experience and the ability to re-engineer existing flows (strongly preferred)
• Experience with SQL and modern data platforms
• Experience working in Agile environments such as Scrum or Kanban
• Experience in a professional services or consulting environment

Communication, Mentoring And People Skills

• Excellent communicator who explains technical concepts in plain business language and can run discovery sessions with business unit leaders to draw out real requirements
• Proven mentor and teacher who has upskilled other engineers or non-technical colleagues, and enjoys building capability in others
• Confident presenting to and facilitating workshops with senior stakeholders
• Collaborative team player who builds strong working relationships across teams
• Bias toward action: builds quickly, ships often and learns through iteration
• High ownership and comfort with ambiguity and shifting priorities
• Sound judgment on when to ship, when to iterate and when to stop

Your journey at A&M

At A&M, professional growth is tied directly to performance, not tenure. Our people take on meaningful, hands-on work supported by a performance development process that rewards contribution and fosters a culture of meritocracy. Stretch roles, evolving business needs, and firm growth create ongoing opportunities for ownership and building new skills, while direct access to senior leaders provides mentorship and real-time coaching along the way. We also prioritize your wellbeing through comprehensive benefits and resources. Together, these elements create an environment where high-performing professionals can continue to grow and advance from day one.

Regular employees working 30 or more hours per week are also entitled to participate in Alvarez & Marsal Holdings’ fringe benefits consisting of healthcare plans, flexible spending and savings accounts, life, AD&D, and disability coverages at rates determined periodically as well as a 401(k) retirement savings plan. Provided the eligibility requirements are met, employees will also receive an annual discretionary contribution to their 401(k) retirement savings plan from Alvarez & Marsal. Additionally, employees are eligible for paid time off including vacation, personal days, seventy-two (72) hours of sick time (prorated for part time employees), ten federal holidays, one floating holiday, and parental leave. The amount of vacation and personal days available varies based on tenure and role type. Clickherefor more information regarding A&M’s benefits programs.

Thesalaryrange is $140,000- $160,000annually, dependent on several variables including but not limited to education, experience, skills, and geography. In addition, A&M offers a discretionary bonus program which is based on a number of factors, including individual and firm performance. Please ask your recruiter for details.