Senior Managing Consultant - Data & AI (Wayfinders Consulting)

Key Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day client leadership for complex AI and data engagements
• Partner with client business, data, and technology leaders to frame problems and define success metrics
• Translate business objectives into executable AI and data delivery plans and roadmaps
• Manage scope, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations throughout the engagement lifecycle
• Provide hands-on technical leadership across AI and data workstreams without being the primary engineer
• Guide solution design across data pipelines, ML models, LLM-based systems, agents, and orchestration layers
• Validate architectural decisions for scalability, reliability, security, and maintainability
• Drive alignment on when to use rules-based logic, ML, LLMs, or hybrid approaches
• Act as the first escalation point for complex technical, architectural, or delivery challenges
• Lead teams of Managing Consultants, Senior Consultants, and Consultants across multiple workstreams
• Ensure engineering discipline, testing, and MLOps practices are applied consistently
• Oversee deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management of AI systems in production
• Ensure Responsible AI, data governance, and security standards are upheld
• Coach and develop delivery leaders and high-potential team members
• Set clear expectations for technical quality, delivery rigor, and professional growth
• Support staffing, onboarding, and performance management in partnership with leadership
• Support opportunity shaping, proposals, and client expansion efforts
• Contribute to development of reusable delivery patterns, playbooks, and accelerators
• Share lessons learned and best practices across the Wayfinders community

Required Skills & Experience

• Experience & Education: 6–10 years of experience in consulting or equivalent industry delivery leadership roles; proven ownership of complex data, analytics, or AI engagements; Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred
• Technical & Delivery Competency: Strong understanding of modern AI and data systems, including: cloud-based data platforms and pipelines, ML and advanced analytics solutions, LLM-based systems (prompting, RAG, agents), orchestration, deployment, and monitoring patterns; ability to assess and guide architectural and tooling decisions without needing to code daily; experience delivering production AI systems with attention to reliability, drift, and operational risk; working knowledge of MLOps, Responsible AI, and enterprise data governance
• Leadership & Client Competencies: Strong client-facing communication and stakeholder management skills; ability to lead cross-functional teams and manage ambiguity; structured problem solving with a bias toward action and outcomes; ability to balance speed, quality, and technical debt

Pay

The pay range for this position is estimated between $168,000 and $216,000.