Kearney Activate AI Engineer

About the role

Kearney Activate is the business acceleration and enablement arm of Kearney Management Consulting, helping clients accelerate transformation through Data and AI.

Our Data & AI business line bridges strategy, technology, and execution to deliver data-driven, AI-enabled, and cloud-powered transformations. We partner with leading platforms such as Microsoft, AWS, Snowflake, Databricks and Nvidia to help organizations build trusted data foundations, deploy intelligent solutions, and scale innovation.

We operate across four key focus areas:

• Advisory & Assurance Services: Driving strategy, governance, and change management to ensure impactful transformation.
• Data Services: Building trusted, high-quality data foundations using Agentic AI across engineering, architecture, and governance.
• Insights Services: Unlocking value through analytics, data science, and AI-driven storytelling for better decision-making.
• Asset Services: Developing reusable GenAI assets, accelerators, and AI-powered solutions that push the boundaries of innovation.

Responsibilities

AI Solution Development

• Contribute to building AI-powered applications, especially those involving LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, and autonomous agents.
• Lead the design and hands-on implementation of end-to-end solutions with guidance from senior engineers.
• Integrate AI components into micro services, APIs, and client-facing applications.

Agent & Workflow Development

• Contribute to the creation of multi-step reasoning agents using Lang Graph or LangChain Agents.
• Implement tool-calling, memory, and routing logic.
• Evaluate agent behavior and improve reliability over iterations.

Client Collaboration & Communication

• Lead conversations with clients to understand their challenges, use cases, and requirements.
• Translate business needs into feasible AI/ML solution components.
• Comfortable and experienced in presenting solution concepts and explaining AI capabilities in accessible terms.

Technical Problem-Solving

• Solve technical issues encountered during development and implementation.
• Identify blockers and escalate complex challenges to senior engineers and R&D teams.
• Document 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.

Continuous Learning & Growth

• 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.

Requirements

• You have 6+ years of hands-on experience and strong foundational knowledge in several of the following areas:
• - Python programming and data technologies (SQL, APIs, basic data pipelines).
• - Building small-scale micro services or automation scripts.
• - Working with LLM APIs (Azure OpenAI, Gemini, Hugging Face, Anthropic).
• - Exposure to GenAI concepts (prompting, embeddings, fine tuning, 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.

Who you are

• Client-Facing Mindset: You should feel comfortable and excited to grow in these areas:
• - Communicating clearly with non-technical audiences.
• - Translating business needs into technical requirements with minimal handholding.
• - Understanding business processes and identifying where AI can add value.

Personal Traits

• 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