Senior Consultant, Artificial Intelligence

At Pioneer Management Consulting, we believe people are at the heart of every successful transformation. We started Pioneer in 2009 with a simple idea: create jobs people love, serve companies we admire, and fund start-ups that are driving innovative good in the world. Built on our three core values; Humble, Hungry, Connected, we deliver world-class consulting with small-town heart and hustle. We are an elite team of problem solvers who unabashedly love business. We partner with clients to solve critical business challenges while fostering environments where individuals and teams can thrive. Team Pioneer brings curiosity, empathy, and expertise to every interaction, ensuring that change is not only implemented but embraced. When you join Pioneer, you become part of a collaborative, supportive community dedicated to making a real difference. We’re a team of moms, dads, coaches, explorers, and creators who do meaningful work together. As a Senior Consultant, Artificial Intelligence, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering enterprise-grade, data-centric AI solutions that help clients solve complex business problems and drive measurable outcomes. You are a senior, self-directed consultant who operates comfortably across architecture, hands-on delivery, and client leadership. In this role, you will serve as a trusted advisor to client leaders while also acting as a technical lead and builder—designing, implementing, and scaling AI systems that sit on modern data platforms. Your work will span agentic AI, RAG architectures, analytics + ML pipelines, and AI-enabled applications, primarily within the Microsoft ecosystem. You bring a strong engineering mindset—particularly with Python, SQL, Microsoft Fabric, Azure AI Foundry, and vector-based retrieval systems—and are comfortable owning solutions end to end, from data ingestion through AI inference and user-facing experiences. Responsibilities: Lead & Advise

• Serve as a day-to-day client lead for AI initiatives, advising executives and senior leaders on AI capabilities, architectural tradeoffs, risks, and adoption strategies.
• Translate business objectives into pragmatic AI and data roadmaps, aligned to data maturity, operating model, and governance constraints.
• Guide clients through build vs. buy decisions, platform selection (Fabric vs. Databricks), and AI operating model design.

Design, Build & Deliver

• Lead the end-to-end design and delivery of AI solutions, including:
• RAG and agentic AI architectures
• ML-enabled analytics and inference pipelines
• AI-powered applications and copilots
• Own solution architecture decisions across data ingestion, transformation, storage, retrieval, model orchestration, and inference.
• Build and review production-grade code, ensuring scalability, observability, and maintainability.
• Integrate AI solutions with enterprise data platforms, ERP/CRM systems, and operational workflows.

Data & Platform Engineering

• Design and implement ETL/ELT pipelines using SQL and Python to support AI and analytics workloads.
• Work hands-on with Microsoft Fabric (Lakehouse, Notebooks, Pipelines, Semantic Models) and/or Databricks.
• Model and optimize data structures for analytics, ML training, and vector-based retrieval.
• Ensure data quality, lineage, and performance across AI-enabled systems.

Prototype & Innovate

• Rapidly design and deliver POCs and MVPs to validate business value and technical feasibility.
• Apply agile and iterative delivery approaches to accelerate time to value.
• Develop reusable accelerators, reference architectures, and internal frameworks for AI delivery.

Collaborate & Mentor

• Partner with strategists, data engineers, ML engineers, developers, and change practitioners to deliver cohesive solutions.
• Mentor consultants and analysts on AI architecture, data engineering, and modern delivery patterns.
• Contribute to internal standards, best practices, and communities of practice for AI and data engineering.

Integrate, Govern & Scale

• Ensure AI solutions align with security, compliance, and responsible AI principles, including data privacy and auditability.
• Support production hardening, monitoring, and lifecycle management of AI systems.
• Help clients design governance models for LLMs, agents, data access, and model evaluation.
• 5+ years of experience in consulting, data engineering, analytics, or AI solution delivery.
• Demonstrated experience delivering production-ready AI, ML, or advanced analytics solutions.
• Proven ownership of client-facing workstreams and technical delivery.

Required Technical Skills:

• Backend development proficiency, with Python strongly preferred.
• Strong experience with SQL-based data transformation, modeling, and analytics.
• Hands-on experience with modern data platforms:
• Microsoft Fabric (preferred) and/or Databricks
• Experience with Azure AI Foundry, including LLM orchestration and AI application development.
• Experience with vector databases and retrieval systems, with Azure AI Search preferred.
• Solid understanding of ML concepts, including feature engineering, model evaluation, and inference workflows (hands-on ML development a plus).

AI Architecture & Patterns

• Experience designing and implementing:
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Agentic AI / multi-agent workflows
• Prompt engineering, tool calling, and structured outputs
• Familiarity with LLM lifecycle concerns: evaluation, versioning, monitoring, and cost optimization.

Integration & Engineering

• Experience integrating AI systems via REST APIs and event-driven patterns.
• Comfort working across analytics, application, and AI layers—not just one silo.
• Ability to reason about performance, cost, and scalability tradeoffs.

Consulting & Leadership

• Strong ability to translate ambiguous business problems into clear technical designs and delivery plans.
• Confidence working directly with senior stakeholders and facilitating architecture and design sessions.
• Experience leading small teams or technical workstreams.

Preferred Experience:

• Experience with Copilot Studio, custom copilots, or AI-enabled Power Platform solutions.
• Familiarity with ML frameworks (e.g., scikit-learn, PyTorch, MLflow).
• Experience in data-heavy, regulated, or asset-intensive industries (utilities, energy, manufacturing, financial services).
• Prior experience contributing to AI strategy, operating models, or enterprise AI enablement.

Location: Must be local to Minneapolis, MN or Denver, CO for flexible, hybrid schedule. The estimated salary range for this role is $110,000 - $165,000 annually, based on a wide array of factors including skillset, years of experience, and role scope. Compensation may vary by location. Bonuses and other incentives are awarded at the Company’s discretion and are based upon individual contributions and overall company performance. Pioneer offers a comprehensive benefits package including meaningful time off and paid holidays, parental leave, 401(k) with employer match, tuition reimbursement, and a broad range of health and welfare benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, and short- and long-term disability. #LI-EH1 Apply tot his job Apply To this Job