Lead AI Innovation Developer

We currently have a career opportunity for a Lead AI Innovation Developer to join our team. This role focuses on driving strategic thinking and innovative AI solutions for client engagements. It is hybrid in nature, with time spent at a local Perficient location and occasional travel to client sites as needed. 

Perficient is a global AI-first consultancy. Our team of strategists, designers, technologists, and engineers partner with the world’s most innovative enterprises and admired brands to deliver real business results through the transformative power of AI. As part of our AI-First strategy, we empower every employee to build AI fluency and actively engage with AI tools to drive innovation and efficiency. We break boundaries, obsess over outcomes, and shape the future for our clients. Join a company where bold ideas and brilliant minds converge to redefine what’s possible - while building a career filled with growth, balance, and purpose.

As a Lead AI Innovation Developer, you will play a pivotal role in helping clients realize how AI can transform their business operations. You will articulate AI capabilities, identify high-impact use cases, and recommend the right technologies to deliver measurable ROI. This role involves guiding clients and internal teams through AI strategy, integration, and multi-agent orchestration, while also providing hands-on expertise to build demos, proofs of value, and accelerators. You will leverage your technical and business acumen to design innovative solutions, ensure successful implementation, and drive adoption of AI within Intelligence Automation across enterprise environments. 

Perficient is always looking for the best and brightest talent and we need you! We’re a quickly-growing, global digital consulting leader, and we’re transforming the world’s largest enterprises and biggest brands. You’ll work with the latest technologies, expand your skills, and become a part of our global community of talented, diverse, and knowledgeable colleagues.

• Develop the Future. Define and drive the AI and platform architecture vision, establishing best practices for building secure, scalable, and high-performance systems on GCP using Gemini AI, Azure and/or AWS.
• Lead AI Enablement. Design and develop AI/ML capabilities across the platform, including data ingestion, model lifecycle management, and real-time monitoring to deliver actionable insights.
• Architect and hands-on development of automation pipelines and workflows using AI frameworks, tools, and automation platforms such as Appian, Pega, Camunda, and others commonly used in enterprise environments.
• Evaluate Emerging Technologies. Continuously assess new AI/ML tools and trends to ensure the platform remains innovative and aligned with strategic business goals.
• Collaborate Across Functions. Act as a key liaison between engineering, product, and business stakeholders, translating business needs into actionable architectural designs and ensuring cohesive execution.
• Establish Technical Standards. Define and enforce architectural standards, toolsets, and integration frameworks.
• Optimize Performance and Cost Direct initiatives to monitor and enhance platform performance and cost-efficiency using advanced platform tools, ensuring high availability and scalability.
• Mentor and Inspire. Guide and support engineering teams, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning within the architecture function.
• Implementing guardrails, optimizing for costs, and evaluating model performances.

• Passionate coders with 3-5 years of application development experience.
• Client facing or consulting experience highly preferred.
• Skilled problem solvers with the desire and proven ability to create innovative solutions.
• Flexible and adaptable attitude, disciplined to manage multiple responsibilities and adjust to varied environments.
• Future technology leaders- dynamic individuals energized by fast paced personal and professional growth.
• Phenomenal communicators who can explain and present concepts to technical and non-technical audiences alike, including high level decision makers.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI/ML, Data Science, or a related field.
• Solid foundation in Computer Science, with strong competencies in data structures, algorithms and software design.
• Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tools to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and support data-informed task execution.
• Familiarity with AI-enhanced platforms is a plus.
• A solid understanding of AI capabilities and limitations including ethical considerations is expected.
• 2+ years working with LLMs (e.g., GPT, Claude, Mistral, etc.) in production settings.
• Proficient in authoring, editing and presenting technical documents.
• Ability to communicate effectively via multiple channels (verbal, written, etc.) with technical and non-technical staff.
• Experience with prompt engineering, RAG, or agentic AI architectures.
• Strong understanding of conversational UX and prompt evaluation metrics.
• Experience with agentic frameworks in practice (LangChain, CrewAI, n8n, Pydantic, etc.)
• Ability to self-direct and build full stack prototypes to show thought process and work direction.
• Experience supporting the presales cycle as an AI SME.
• Must be open to travel.

Preferred skills and education:

• Knowledge of distributed systems design and implementation or equivalent.
• Knowledge of large-scale automation and workflow management or equivalent.
• Knowledge of presentations and whiteboarding skills with a high degree of comfort speaking with internal and external executives, IT management, and developers.
• Experience in architecting, migrating, transforming or modernizing customer requirements to the cloud.
• Experience with specialization in Machine Learning, Deep Learning, or Natural Language Processing and strong AI/ML focus

The salary range for this position takes into consideration a variety of factors, including but not limited to skill sets, level of experience, applicable office location, training, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. The new hire salary range displays the minimum and maximum salary targets for this position across all US locations, and the range has not been adjusted for any specific state differentials. It is not typical for a candidate to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role, and compensation decisions are dependent on the unique facts and circumstances regarding each candidate. A reasonable estimate of the current salary range for this position is $73,008 to $170,640. Please note that the salary range posted reflects the base salary only and does not include benefits or any potential equity or variable bonus programs. Information regarding the benefits available for this position are in our benefits overview. 

Perficient, Inc. proudly provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a protected veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. Perficient, Inc. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training. Perficient, Inc. expressly prohibits any form of unlawful employee harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or covered veterans. Improper interference with the ability of Perficient, Inc. employees to perform their expected job duties is absolutely not tolerated.​ 

Disability Accommodations: 

Perficient is committed to providing a barrier-free employment process with reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, please contact us.​ 

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled or the posting is removed.​  

Disclaimer:  The above statements are not intended to be a complete statement of job content, rather to act as a guide to the essential functions performed by the employee assigned to this classification.  Management retains the discretion to add or change the duties of the position at any time. 

Perficient is the global AI-first consultancy. Our team of strategists, designers, technologists, and engineers partners with the world’s most innovative enterprises and admired brands to deliver real business results through the transformative power of AI. As part of our AI-First strategy, we empower every employee to build AI fluency and actively engage with AI tools to drive innovation and efficiency. We break boundaries, obsess over outcomes, and shape the future for our clients. Join a company where bold ideas and brilliant minds converge to redefine what’s possible - while building a career filled with growth, balance, and purpose.