{"id":199254,"url":"https://alion.io/job/william-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer","title":"Lead Data Scientist – AI Engineer","company":{"id":14933,"name":"William Blair","domain":"williamblair.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/william-blair","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":12,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.75,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":62,"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Chicago, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":186000,"max":222000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":222000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Claude","optional":false},{"name":"Dagster","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"GDPR","optional":true},{"name":"Telegram","optional":true},{"name":"WhatsApp","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-03-14T00:30:35Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-08","last_verified_at":"2026-10-30T14:00:19Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":230,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":229},"description":"Solutions for Today’s Challenges. Vision for Tomorrow’s Opportunities.\nJoin William Blair, the Premier Global Partnership.\nWe are looking for a Lead AI Engineer to join a newly formed AI Innovation Function, part of the Investment Banking AI & Technology team. This is not a back-office engineering role. Inspired by the Forward Deployed Engineer model, you will be embedded directly with deal teams and industry groups-understanding their workflows firsthand, building AI-powered tools that deliver measurable outcomes, and taking end-to-end accountability for what you ship.\nYou will set the engineering standards for the team: architecture decisions, code quality, testing practices, and deployment patterns. You will work across the full stack-from data pipelines and ML models to LLM orchestration and Salesforce integrations-with the options to choose the right tool for each problem and the discipline to build for longevity.\nRESPONSIBILITIES\nDesign and build the integration layer between Enterprise Claude, Salesforce CRM, and our proprietary ML models, creating the orchestration backbone for AI-powered banking workflows.\nDevelop AI agents and multi-step LLM applications for high-value use cases: CIP first-draft generation, buyer landscape analysis, intelligent process letter drafting, and deal status automation.\nSet engineering standards for the Innovation Team: code review practices, CI/CD pipelines, testing frameworks, and documentation norms that enable speed without sacrificing reliability.\nWork directly with deal teams and industry/sector groups to understand workflows, identify automation opportunities, and iterate on deployed tools based on real-world banker feedback.\nBuild and maintain data pipelines using Databricks and Dagster for feature engineering, model training, and analytics that feed AI capabilities.\nPerform rapid analysis and prototyping-translate a banker’s pain point into a working proof of concept within days, not weeks.\nEvaluate and integrate point solutions (Rogo.ai, Blueflame AI, Fellow.ai) via APIs, ensuring clean data flows and consistent user experiences within Salesforce.\nImplement security and data governance protocols appropriate for confidential deal information.\nQUALIFICATIONS\n5+ years of software engineering experience with a strong full-stack foundation, including production experience building applications that serve demanding end users.\nHands-on experience building applications or agents using large language models: prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, multi-step orchestration, tool use, and evaluation frameworks.\nExperience deploying and operating multi-agent ecosystems in production - including reliability engineering, monitoring, failure recovery, and scaling agent infrastructure for enterprise workloads.\nStrong ML fundamentals-ability to train, evaluate, and deploy models, perform exploratory data analysis, and build feature pipelines.\nRigorous engineering practices: you write tested, reviewed, well-documented code and build systems designed for maintainability, not just demos.\nFamiliarity with capital markets, and preferably direct experience in or adjacent to investment banking, private equity, venture capital, or hedge funds.\nExperience with cloud infrastructure (Azure preferred), data platforms (Databricks/Spark), and orchestration tools (Dagster, Airflow, or equivalent).\nOutcome orientation-you measure success by business impact delivered, not features shipped.\nPREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS\nExperience in a Forward Deployed Engineer, solutions engineer, or embedded technical role where you owned outcomes alongside business stakeholders.\nPrior work with Salesforce APIs, SOQL, or CRM integration patterns.\nExperience architecting production-grade, interconnected multi-agent ecosystems - designing agent coordination patterns, shared tooling layers, and communication protocols across autonomous components.\nExperience building AI tools for financial professionals, including document generation, financial analysis automation, or deal workflow tooling.\nContributions to engineering culture: mentoring, establishing best practices, or leading technical design reviews in a small-team environment.\nA reasonable estimate of the current base salary range at time of posting is below. Base salary does not include other forms of compensation or benefits. Actual base salary within the specified range is based on several factors, including but not limited to applicant's skills, prior relevant experience, specific degrees and certifications, job responsibilities, market considerations and, if applicable, the location of the position.\nThis role is eligible for either a discretionary annual bonus (based on company, business unit and individual performance) and/or commission-based incentives.\nOur featured benefit offerings include medical, dental and vision coverage, employer paid short & long-term disability and life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, paid time off, Maven family & fertility benefit, parental leave (including adoption, surrogacy, and foster placement), as well as other voluntary benefits. \nSalary Range\n$186,000—$222,000 USD\n\nAbout Our Firm\nWilliam Blair strives to attract qualified candidates who specialize in investment banking, investment management, private wealth management, and other strategic resource groups. We are committed to empowering our colleagues to deliver client success and engage in our communities. Our firm has delivered trusted advice for nine decades, continuing to deepen our expertise and relationships across asset classes and markets throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. We provide advisory services, strategies, and solutions to meet clients’ evolving needs amid dynamic market conditions and varying industries. What sets us apart is that we are an independent partnership, with colleagues who have unique experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds. We empower our people to bring their best thinking so we can deliver the tailored, thoughtful work and problem-solving abilities that our clients expect. We invite you to learn more about us by visiting williamblair.com.\nWilliam Blair is an equal opportunity employer. It complies with all laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination in employment practice because of race, color, religion, creed, ancestry, marital status, gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, unfavorable discharge from the military service or on the basis of a physical or mental disability that is unrelated to the employee's ability to perform the duties of the job applied for. EOE m/f/d/v\nBe aware of hiring scams: William Blair has clear processes and guidelines with regards to recruiting. We do not request personal financial information in connection with an employment application nor does William Blair extend any employment offers without first conducting an interview through one of its registered offices. William Blair does not use instant messaging services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, or iMessage as part of the recruiting or interviewing process.\nNote to External Recruiters / Search Firms: William Blair does not accept unsolicited resumes and will not pay for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. Any unsolicited resumes received will not be considered as a valid submission.\nDownload William Blair's privacy policies for job applicants:\n California Consumer Privacy Act Privacy Notice (CCPA)\n General Data Protection Regulation Privacy Notice (GDPR)\n Contact us should you have any questions or concerns.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7567,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Life insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Wealth Management & Financial Advisors","Asset Management & Funds","Investment Banking & M&A Advisory"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-04T03:50:57Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 13 · green card filings: 2","filings_12m":13,"filings_prev_12m":14,"green_card_filings_12m":2,"median_offered_wage_usd":172833,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":4}],"liveness":{"score":9,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.314,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":230,"expected_fill_days":62,"reasons":["conf:0","stale_co","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-30T05:48:23Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":222000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/william-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/william-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-30T18:18:41Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":7179,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-31T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":14933},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=14933"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwilliam-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwilliam-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwilliam-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/william-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwilliam-blair-lead-data-scientist-ai-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":199254}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"williamblair.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":199254},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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