Associate Director, AI & Applied Solutions

Associate Director, AI & Applied Solutions

At SSA & Company, our values, relationships, and people drive everything we do. We work in a flat structure that values every individual’s input, and deploy agile, light-footprint teams of typically 3–5 consultants.

We are seeking an Associate Director, AI & Applied Solutions to lead the hands-on application of AI, data, and data science to deliver measurable client value. This is a builder’s role: you will architect and prototype (Gen)AI-powered apps and agents, pioneer new techniques in LLMs, shape SSA’s tech stack, and serve as an evangelist who mentors colleagues on using AI as a lever for hard and soft benefits—working alongside engagement leaders and clients from C-Suite to front-line.

What You’ll Do:

Engagement Leadership

•          Partner with engagement leaders to design and deliver advanced quantitative and qualitative analyses across operational, strategic, and economic dimensions—now augmented by AI and data science.

•          Serve as the day-to-day face of the firm and primary point of contact, leading teams and building deep relationships with clients across industries.

•          Apply SSA’s hypothesis-driven problem solving and structured disaggregation to solve complex client challenges.

Hands-On AI, Data & Data Science Delivery

•          Build working prototypes for clients—apps, agents, copilots, RAG systems, and analytical tools—using modern (Gen)AI dev tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, LangChain/LangGraph, vector stores, agent frameworks).

•          Apply lightweight data engineering and DevOps practices (clean pipelines, version control, CI/CD, evaluation, monitoring) so prototypes are demoable, repeatable, and credible to client engineering teams.

•          Execute applied data science: hypothesis generation, model selection, evaluation, and deployment of ML/LLM-based solutions tied to clear business outcomes.

•          Synthesize analysis and AI outputs into high-value insights, actionable recommendations, and financial impact projections (hard and soft benefits).

Tech Stack Strategy & AI Innovation

•          Shape SSA’s tech stack across the AI delivery lifecycle—models, frameworks, data platforms, orchestration, and DevOps/MLOps tooling—with opinionated, evidence-backed recommendations.

•          Pioneer new techniques in AI/LLMs: agentic systems, multi-agent orchestration, RAG, fine-tuning, and evaluation frameworks.

•          Champion the data engineering and DevOps foundations that make AI work in production—reliable pipelines, well-modeled data, environments, CI/CD, and observability.

•          Build internal IP—accelerators, reference architectures, prompt libraries, agent templates, and analytical frameworks.

Client Value & Business Performance

•          Above all, deliver measurable client value—revenue growth, cost optimization, risk management, customer/employee experience—using AI, data, and data science as levers.

•          Establish KPIs to track AI-enabled transformation and translate technical concepts into compelling narratives for executive and board-level audiences.

Mentoring & Evangelism

•          Mentor colleagues firmwide on using AI tools—coding assistants, agents, prompt craft—and develop juniors in both technical and consulting craft.

•          Evangelize AI in consulting internally and externally; produce high-quality PowerPoint and live demos for line-manager-to-board audiences.

What You Need:

Experience

•          6–10 years of progressive experience; prior consulting (top management consulting), corporate strategy, or investment banking/PE strongly preferred.

•          Demonstrated experience supporting or leading AI, data, and analytics initiatives—ideally including hands-on building of Gen AI applications, agents, or LLM-powered prototypes shipped to real users.

•          Exposure to financial services (P&C, life, banking, wealth) and/or retail, healthcare, or manufacturing is a plus.

Technical Knowledge

•          Hands-on fluency with (Gen)AI dev patterns: LLM APIs, prompt engineering, RAG, agentic frameworks, evaluation, and tool/function calling.

•          Comfort shipping code with AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot); able to read, write, and review Python and/or TypeScript.

•          Working knowledge of data engineering (ETL/ELT, data modeling, orchestration with Airflow/dbt/Dagster, streaming/batch, feature/vector stores) and DevOps/MLOps fundamentals (Git, CI/CD, Docker, IaC, monitoring, AI evaluation/observability).

•          Familiarity with cloud data and AI platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, AWS/Azure/GCP AI services) and core ML concepts.

Leadership & Communication

•          Superb written and oral communication; able to present to senior executives and credibly demo working software.

•          Resilience, critical thinking, and comfort in ambiguous, fast-paced environments with executive exposure.

Education & Other

•          Bachelor’s degree with excellent academic credentials from a top-tier institution; focus in business, economics, engineering, computer science, data science, or a quantitative discipline preferred.

•          Master’s in Business Administration, Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics/Analytics, Operations, or related field strongly preferred.

•          Comfortable with weekly, multi-day travel, including occasional international projects.

SSA & Company provides a competitive salary range for our open requisitions. Actual salary is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, experience, training, education, and other business and organizational needs. The range of starting annual salary for this role is $140,000 - $190,000. Decisions will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

In addition to the base salary, this position is eligible for performance-based incentives and a competitive benefits package.

SSA & Company provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, SSA complies with all applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

SSA & Company does not accept unsolicited candidates, referrals, or resumes from any staffing agency, recruiting service, sourcing entity, or third-party paid service at any time. Any referrals, resumes, or candidates submitted to SSA or any employee or owner of SSA without a pre-existing agreement signed by both parties covering the submission with be considered SSA’s property and not subject to any fees or charges. For existing agreements, a role must be approved and open to external search; otherwise, unsolicited, and unapproved submittals and referrals will be considered SSA's property and free of fees.