Forward Deployment Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

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In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and passionate about creating exceptional work experiences - together. With a customer-first mindset, we make doing business with McCain easy.

About the role.

The Forward Deployment Engineer is accountable for owning high-value AI use cases from problem discovery through delivery, adoption, and measured business value. This role embeds directly in the business, partners closely with technical teams, and ensures AI solutions are accurate, reliable, adopted by users, and aligned to McCain's Responsible AI, security, and governance standards.

The role is permanent and may be based in North America, including Toronto or Chicago, with India and Canada rotation opportunities available for pod-facing assignments.

What you'll be doing.

• Own one Red or high-value Yellow AI use case end-to-end and be accountable for the realized business outcome.
• Embed in the business workflow to identify the highest-value problems and define success metrics with the business owner.
• Drive use cases from problem discovery through deployment, adoption, and measured value realization.
• Partner with a technical lead from the AI Engineering team to guide a small, dedicated cross-functional pod.
• Ensure AI solutions are accurate, reliable, and integrated with systems such as SAP, Salesforce, Databricks, and the Distyl agent harness.
• Solve ambiguous deployment and integration challenges in real time by engaging central functions as needed.
• Drive user onboarding, training, and change management to embed solutions into daily operating processes.
• Identify adoption risks early and lead corrective actions to support sustained business impact.
• Build trust with business sponsors and end users as a credible technical advisor.
• Support Responsible AI, security, and risk-classification requirements, including evaluation gates owned by Use Case Governance & Operations.

What you'll need to be successful.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; an advanced degree is considered an asset.
• 5+ years of experience owning complex, client-facing, or business-facing technology projects.
• Ability to frame high-level business problems and connect solutions to ROI or strategic KPIs.
• Ability to reason about LLM and agent reliability constraints and credibly direct engineers, without necessarily coding production systems.
• Experience navigating noisy enterprise data, ambiguous environments, and complex stakeholder needs.
• Demonstrated record of driving measured financial impact and user adoption, not just delivery.
• Strong customer obsession, executive presence, and ability to earn trust from end users through functional senior leadership teams.
• Comfort with ambiguity, ownership, and travel to the point of work, including sales ride-alongs, plant visits, and grower sites.
• Nice to have: McCain commercial domain experience in Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, or Supply Chain; CPG or food-service experience; knowledge-engineering instincts; familiarity with the McCain AI stack; or change-management experience.
• Strong commitment to ethical and responsible AI practices.

About the team.

The Forward Deployment Engineer works as the single accountable owner for an AI use case while partnering with a technical lead and a dedicated cross-functional pod. The pod may include AI engineers, a knowledge engineer, and platform resources seconded for the life of the use case, with support from a dotted-line architect from the central Architecture team.

This role is not a traditional project manager or product manager position. It is designed to sit close to the business, translate operational challenges into deployable technical solutions, and ensure adoption and measurable business outcomes. Depending on the assignment, the role may report to the FDE Practice Lead for the Yellow portfolio or to the VP, Artificial Intelligence when serving as pod owner for a flagship Red use case.

About McCain.

Click Here to learn more about McCain and how we provide opportunities to make an impact that matters.

Leadership principles.

At McCain, our leadership principles guide how we engage with customers, collaborate as a team, and achieve success. We focus on understanding customer needs, driving innovation, empowering people, and taking ownership to clear obstacles and deliver results.

The McCain experience.

We are McCain. This statement is a testament to our collective strength and our individual value. Your contributions play a vital role in our success. Our winning culture is rooted in authenticity and trust, empowering us to bring out the best in one another. Here, you'll find opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive. Join us and experience why we're better together.

Our purpose is grounded in building meaningful relationships. We're big believers in the power of working together in person. It helps us stay connected, collaborate more effectively, and grow as a team. At the same time, we recognize the importance of flexibility. Most office-based roles follow a hybrid model, with the option to work remotely two days a week. There may be exceptions depending on the role and location, so we encourage you to speak with your recruiter for more details.