Prototyping Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL (NOW HIRING)

JLL empowers you to shape a brighter way.
Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world class services, advisory and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers and to find a place where they belong. Whether you've got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you're looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward.
Forward Deployed Engineer
Capital Markets Technology • JLL
About JLL
Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world-class services, advisory, and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers, and find a place where they belong.
Whether you've got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you're looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward.
Role Overview
As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will operate at the front lines of innovation - embedded directly with subject matter experts, product, and engineering teams to rapidly design, architect, prototype, and deploy solutions that solve high-priority business problems. This is not a traditional engineering role with long delivery cycles. You will be expected to go from concept to working prototype in days, not months, while maintaining enterprise-grade standards for quality, security, and scalability.
You bring an exceptional combination of skills: deep hands-on engineering experience across AI agents and full-stack development, and the interpersonal skills to earn trust, drive alignment, and influence without authority. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a system architecture with senior stakeholders and writing production code the same afternoon. You thrive in fast, ambiguous environments where creative thinking and execution speed matter, and you're also a dependable partner when production systems need attention.
Key Responsibilities
Solution Design & Architecture

• Lead solution design for complex, cross-functional data and AI problems - from initial discovery through to technical blueprint
• Define and communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, and delivery approaches to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Design scalable, modular systems that balance the need for speed with enterprise standards for reliability, security, and maintainability
• Participate in architecture reviews, ensuring alignment with enterprise patterns and platform standards
• Create clear technical documentation: architecture diagrams, data flow maps, API contracts, and solution briefs

Rapid Prototyping & Solution Delivery

• Design and deliver working prototypes for complex data and AI problems within compressed timeframes, often days to weeks
• Translate ambiguous business requirements into concrete technical solutions with minimal hand-holding
• Balance speed of delivery with enterprise standards - your prototypes are production-ready, not throwaway
• Continuously iterate on solutions based on direct feedback from product managers, program leads, and end users
• Develop intuitive front-end interfaces and dashboards that bring data and AI outputs to life for business users

AI Agent Development

• Design, build, and deploy AI agents and multi-agent systems that automate complex workflows end-to-end
• Develop and maintain agent skills - discrete, reusable capabilities that compose into larger agentic pipelines
• Implement and extend Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and clients to connect AI agents with enterprise tools, APIs, and data sources
• Design evaluation harnesses, guardrails, and monitoring pipelines to ensure agent reliability and safety in production
• Stay current with the rapidly evolving agentic AI landscape and proactively introduce new techniques and tooling to the team
• Integrate LLMs, RAG systems, and ML models into production workflows

Application Support & Operational Reliability

• Serve as a technical point of contact for production issues across deployed AI and data applications, triaging and resolving incidents promptly
• Monitor application health, respond to alerts, and coordinate with platform and infrastructure teams to maintain SLA commitments
• Contribute to post-incident reviews, identify root causes, and implement preventive measures to reduce recurrence
• Maintain runbooks and operational documentation so that support responsibilities are scalable and transferable across the team

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Embed directly with product, program, and engineering teams to co-define problems and co-deliver solutions
• Influence technical direction and build alignment across teams without relying on formal authority
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical business stakeholders - in writing, in meetings, and in executive presentations
• Mentor and elevate junior engineers, sharing patterns and practices for agentic development, prompt design, and rapid delivery
• Foster a collaborative, low-ego team culture where speed and quality go hand in hand

Qualifications
Critical Skills

• Years of professional software engineering experience proportional to level, including solution design and architecture ownership
• Demonstrated ability to architect end-to-end systems - from requirements through deployment - with clear documentation and stakeholder communication
• Hands-on experience building AI agents, including defining agent skills, tool use, memory, and multi-step reasoning
• Experience with AI-Augmented Engineering - actively using tools like Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent assistants to accelerate coding, documentation, and problem-solving day-to-day
• Direct experience with AWS Agent Core, Azure AI Foundry, Google Vertex AI Agents, or equivalent production agent infrastructure - building, deploying, and operating agents in production
• Working knowledge of Model Context Protocol (MCP) - including building or consuming MCP servers to connect agents with external systems
• Experience with agentic frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, or Semantic Kernel
• Proficiency in Python and at least one front-end framework (React, Vue.js, or Angular)
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills - you can earn trust quickly, navigate ambiguity, and drive alignment across diverse teams
• Comfort operating in fast-paced environments with shifting priorities, high ownership expectations, and occasional on-call responsibility
• Experience mentoring or supporting junior engineers in their technical development

Desirable Skills

• Experience with RAG architectures, vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector), and semantic search
• Familiarity with prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and LLM evaluation techniques
• Experience with agent observability and tracing tools (LangSmith, Arize, Weights & Biases, or similar)
• Strong UX instincts - ability to simplify complex flows and make agent outputs accessible and actionable for non-technical stakeholders
• Experience with containerization and CI/CD practices (Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions)
• Background in real estate, financial services, or other data-intensive enterprise domains
• Experience facilitating technical discovery workshops, design sprints, or architecture reviews

This position does not provide visa sponsorship. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.
Estimated compensation for this position:
150.00 - 180.00 USD per year
This range is an estimate and actual compensation may differ. Final compensation packages are determined by various considerations including but not limited to candidate qualifications, location, market conditions, and internal considerations.
Location:
Remote -Boston, MA, Chicago, IL, San Francisco, CA
If this job description resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet all the requirements. We're interested in getting to know you and what you bring to the table!
Personalized benefits that support personal well-being and growth:
JLL recognizes the impact that the workplace can have on your wellness, so we offer a supportive culture and comprehensive benefits package that prioritizes mental, physical and emotional health. Some of these benefits may include:

• 401(k) plan with matching company contributions
• Comprehensive Medical, Dental & Vision Care
• Paid parental leave at 100% of salary
• Paid Time Off and Company Holidays
• Early access to earned wages through Daily Pay

At JLL, we harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to efficiently accelerate meaningful connections between candidates and opportunities. Using AI capabilities, we analyze your application for relevant skills, experiences, and qualifications to generate valuable insights about how your unique profile aligns with the specific requirements of the role you're pursuing.
JLL Privacy Notice
Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading global provider of real estate and investment management services. We take our responsibility to protect the personal information provided to us seriously. Generally the personal information we collect from you are for the purposes of processing in connection with JLL's recruitment process. We endeavour to keep your personal information secure with appropriate level of security and keep for as long as we need it for legitimate business or legal reasons. We will then delete it safely and securely.
For more information about how JLL processes your personal data, please view our Candidate Privacy Statement.
For additional details please see our career site pages for each country.
For candidates in the United States, please see a full copy of our Equal Employment Opportunity policy here.
Jones Lang LaSalle ("JLL") is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process - including the online application and/or overall selection process - you may email us at HRSCLeaves@jll.com. This email is only to request an accommodation. Please direct any other general recruiting inquiries to our Contact Us page > I want to work for JLL.
Pursuant to the Arizona Civil Rights Act, criminal convictions are not an absolute bar to employment.
Pursuant to Illinois Law, applicants are not obligated to disclose sealed or expunged records of conviction or arrest.
Pursuant to Columbia, SC ordinance, this position is subject to a background check for any convictions directly related to its duties and responsibilities. Only job-related convictions will be considered and will not automatically disqualify the candidate.
California Residents only
If you are a California resident as defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) please view our Supplemental Privacy Statement which describes your rights and disclosures about your personal information. If you are viewing this on a mobile device you may want to view the CCPA version on a larger device.
Pursuant to the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, JLL will consider for employment all qualified Applicants, including those with Criminal Histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Accepting applications on an ongoing basis until candidate identified.