Strategy: Forward Deployed AI Strategist

Coastal Wave Recruiting•San Francisco, CA

9h•Onsite

About The Position

Our client, a fast-growing AI software development enterprise B2B financial startup, is hiring Forward Deployed AI Strategists to embed with enterprise clients, run forensic workflow audits, and translate complex business problems into AI solutions that actually ship. This is a high-ownership, client-facing strategy role — think McKinsey engagement manager meets AI operator — built for someone who's tired of making recommendations that disappear into a void and wants to see their work run in production.

Requirements

3–5 years of experience in top-tier strategy consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) or equivalent strategy/BizOps role at a growth-stage startup (Series C+) or large F500 enterprise — must have owned engagements, not just supported them
Track record leading large-scale transformation, finance ops, or strategy work
Proven ability to lead meetings and build trust with C-suite stakeholders (CFOs, COOs, VPs) — you can hold the room and push back without losing the client
First-principles problem solver — you reason from the actual business problem, not a template
AI-native: uses AI tools daily and has a genuine point of view on where agents work and where they don't
Hands-on experience deploying AI tools/agents to automate end-to-end enterprise workflows
Proficient in SQL, Python, and Excel/Sheets for data analysis, workflow modeling, and business case building
Strong executive presence with a track record of driving engagements with the C-suite

Nice To Haves

Founder, early employee, or operator who sold into enterprise customers or owned a P&L
Top-tier university background (target school for MBB recruiting)

Responsibilities

Run end-to-end discovery engagements with enterprise clients — mapping workflows, interviewing stakeholders, and delivering executive readouts to CFOs and COOs
Translate ambiguous business problems into concrete specs that the engineering team can build and deploy
Pre-sell the implementation phase by running audits so compelling that clients greenlight the full engagement
Own client relationships from first conversation to live system handoff, with 10–20% travel to client sites
Feed field learnings back into the company's playbooks, patterns, and platform as the team scales