William Blair & Co LLC

Senior Data Scientist - AI Engineer

William Blair & Co LLC$157K — $187K *
Finance & Insurance
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3+ years of software engineering experience with full-stack capability
  • Experience with large language models including prompt engineering and orchestration
  • Knowledge of building interconnected multi-agent ecosystems
  • Strong ML fundamentals for data analysis and model evaluation
  • Rigorous engineering practices prioritizing maintainability
  • Familiarity with capital markets and investment banking preferred
  • Experience with cloud platforms (Azure) and pipeline orchestration tools

Responsibilities

  • Build AI-powered features integrated into Salesforce for bankers
  • Develop LLM applications for banking use cases and insights
  • Design and maintain data pipelines for analytics and model training
  • Identify high-impact automation opportunities with deal teams
  • Prototype quickly to validate ideas before full implementation
  • Integrate third-party AI tools into the existing architecture
  • Write production-quality, well-tested code and follow engineering standards

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • Employer paid short & long-term disability and life insurance
  • 401(k) with profit sharing
  • Paid time off and parental leave benefits
  • Family and fertility benefits
  • Voluntary benefits available
Full Job Description
We are hiring a Senior 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. This role follows the Forward Deployed Engineer philosophy: you will not build in isolation. You will be embedded with deal teams and industry/sector groups, understanding their day-to-day workflows and delivering tools that create immediate, measurable impact on how they originate, execute, and close deals. You will work across the full stack-data pipelines, ML models, LLM-powered applications, and Salesforce integrations-with a bias for shipping fast, learning from real user feedback, and iterating relentlessly. Responsibilities include but may not be limited to: • Build AI-powered features and agents using Enterprise Claude and proprietary ML models, integrated directly into the Salesforce workflows bankers use every day. • Develop LLM applications for banking use cases including automated comparable analysis, buyer recommendation, meeting intelligence summarization, and deal status briefings. • Design and maintain data pipelines using Databricks and Dagster for feature engineering, model training, and real-time analytics. • Work directly with deal teams and industry groups to identify high-impact automation opportunities and translate banker pain points into working solutions. • Perform rapid prototyping and exploratory analysis-build proof-of-concept tools quickly to validate ideas before investing in production-grade implementations. • Integrate third-party AI tools (Rogo.ai, Blueflame AI, Fellow.ai) via APIs and ensure seamless data flows across the composable architecture. • Write well-tested, production-quality code with rigorous engineering practices: code reviews, CI/CD, monitoring, and documentation. • Contribute to the team's engineering standards and share knowledge as the team scales. Qualifications: • 3+ years of software engineering experience with full-stack capability and a track record of shipping production applications. • Experience building applications or agents using large language models: prompt engineering, RAG architectures, LLM orchestration, or tool-use patterns. • Experience building interconnected multi-agent ecosystems - implementing agent coordination, shared tooling, and communication patterns across autonomous components. • Solid ML fundamentals: ability to perform data analysis, build and evaluate models, and work with feature pipelines. • Rigorous engineering habits-you believe in tested code, clean architecture, and building for maintainability from the start. • Familiarity with capital markets; experience in or adjacent to investment banking, private equity, venture capital, or hedge funds is strongly preferred. • Experience with cloud platforms (Azure preferred), data tools (Databricks, Spark), and pipeline orchestration (Dagster, Airflow, or similar). • Outcome-focused mindset-you care about whether bankers actually use what you build and whether it moves the needle on their productivity. Preferred Qualifications: • Experience in a Forward Deployed Engineer, solutions engineer, or embedded technical role with direct business stakeholder accountability. • Experience deploying multi-agent ecosystems into production environments - including operational monitoring, failure handling, and end-to-end lifecycle management. • Exposure to financial services workflows: deal execution, pitch preparation, due diligence, or financial modeling. • Experience working with Salesforce APIs or CRM platforms as integration surfaces. • A builder's mentality: you have side projects, open-source contributions, or a portfolio that demonstrates curiosity and initiative beyond your day job. #LI-CH #LI-Hybrid A 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. This role is eligible for either a discretionary annual bonus (based on company, business unit and individual performance) and/or commission-based incentives. Our 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. Salary Range $157,000-$187,000 USD

About William Blair & Co LLC

William Blair is a global investment banking and asset management firm that provides advisory services, strategies, and solutions to meet clients' evolving needs. The firm's investment banking group offers mergers and acquisitions, public and private financing, and other advisory services. William Blair's asset management group provides investment management, wealth management, and retirement planning services. The firm is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and has over 1,400 employees worldwide.
Learn more about William Blair & Co LLC
Size
1,400 employees
Industry
NASDAQ

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