As a Principal Forward Deployed Engineer, you’ll lead the deployment and scaling of a next-generation AI platform designed to connect strategy to execution through advanced analytics, machine learning, and agentic systems. This role is uniquely field-facing. You'll work directly with clients, embedded in their environments, navigating real-world constraints that don't surface in controlled settings. The combination of hands-on engineering, client-facing delivery, and direct product influence defines the role.
You will sit at the intersection of software engineering and infrastructure, bringing advanced AI capabilities into real-world environments and ensuring they work at scale.
You’ll be at the center of how these systems are deployed, adopted, and operated, helping organizations translate complex AI strategies into practical, high-impact solutions.
You'll take ownership of the platform delivery lifecycle, including the most demanding engagements, where environments are often non-standard and requirements evolve quickly. You’ll lead large-scale, multi-workstream deployments across cloud and hybrid infrastructures in enterprise environments (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), guiding architectural decisions and setting direction for complex deployments across engagements.
Your work frequently involves containerized and distributed systems, including Kubernetes-based environments, where reliability, scalability, and operational stability are critical. From validating performance and resilience to ensuring structured handovers, your work ensures systems are production-ready and built to last. Along the way, you’ll help shape how delivery is structured across teams, evolving tooling, automation, and delivery practices based on real-world experience, and working hands-on to resolve complex issues in production.
The impact of your work is tangible. You’ll enable clients to run advanced AI-driven workflows and manage intelligent systems within their existing technology ecosystems, often in regulated or multi-region settings. Working closely with senior technical stakeholders, you’ll help define deployment strategies, navigate complex challenges, and guide adoption through practical, experience-led best practices. Your perspective from the field will also feed directly into product development, influencing how QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey’s technology continues to evolve. You'll maintain a continuous feedback loop with the product team — surfacing patterns from the field, contributing to issue resolution, and helping ensure that real-world deployment experience shapes the platform's evolution.
Based in one of our North America offices, you’ll work closely with engineers, product teams, and technical experts across QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey’s global community. Beyond leading deployments, you’ll collaborate with data scientists, machine learning engineers, designers, and technologists on interdisciplinary initiatives, contributing to a broader ecosystem of AI innovation. You’ll also play a key role in developing others—mentoring engineers, reviewing approaches, and helping teams raise the bar for quality and delivery. Together, you’ll help operationalize advanced AI systems across industries, driving successful delivery, validation, and adoption in client environments.
At QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, you’ll thrive in an unparalleled environment for growth. You’ll develop a sought-after perspective by connecting technology and business value, work across industries, and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to unlock the transformative potential of AI, while advancing as a technologist and leader.
