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About This Role
JOB REQUISITION
Digital Platforms Senior Analyst \- Interim, Point \& AI SolutionsLOCATION
CHICAGOADDITIONAL LOCATION(S)JOB DESCRIPTION*You Belong Here*
The Protiviti Career provides opportunity to learn, inspire, and advance within a collaborative and inclusive culture. We hire curious individuals for whom learning is a passion. We lean into our mission: We Care. We Collaborate. We Deliver.
At every level, we champion leaders who live our values of integrity, inclusion, innovation, and commitment to success. Imagining our work as a journey, we believe integrity guides our way, inclusion moves us forward together, innovation creates new destinations, and our commitment to success empowers us to deliver on our vision to be the most trusted global consulting firm.*Where We Need You*
We are looking for a Digital Platforms Senior Analyst to join our team. Protiviti works in a hybrid environment and this role requires that you work in\-person in our office several times per week.*What You Can Expect*
As a Digital Platforms Senior Analyst, you will support the design strategy, vision, and execution for Interim, Point, and AI solutions. You will drive and facilitate discussions with managers to identify business capabilities aligned to strategic goals and business objectives.*What You Will Be Doing*Product Scope – Define Strategic Initiatives \& Plan on Design* Create and maintain business capability, data, process and technology inventories for multiple applications.
- Partner with multiple capability and functional teams to gather and document the organization’s business and technology landscape.
- Lead, build, manage, and enhance business capability models using maturity and optimization frameworks to enable long\-term roadmaps.
- Collaborate with product squad (engineering, product management, and research) to improve existing products and services or help lead the creation of brand new or extensions of existing products and services.
Design Strategy, Discovery, and Experimentation* Partner in the strategic planning process by contributing to the scope definition of strategic initiatives leveraging capabilities and developing capability heatmaps to highlight impacts, dependencies, overlaps, and opportunities.
- Key Deliverables include (but are not limited to): Capability Models, Capability Heatmaps, Capability Maturity Assessments and Capability Roadmaps.
- Help define a human\-centered approach for digital transformation experiences.
- Produce materials and facilitate collaborative, cross\-functional design sprints.
- Conduct user research.
- Work closely with solution and technical architects to deliver business architecture artifacts needed for end\-to\-end Architecture and solution architecture approaches.
- Present recommendations and solutions clearly and concisely.
- Integrate knowledge of enterprise or business\-segment strategy when leading programs and projects within areas of expertise.
User\-Centered Agile Delivery* Help define and write job stories and business outcomes to prioritize product backlogs.
- Create high\-fidelity, interactive prototypes to refine designs, test desirability with users, and validate backlogs ahead of development.
- Understand technical constraints and business outcomes to ensure they are reflected in design solutions.
- Partner with user research teams to test prototypes with real users.
- Support workflow and design systems to enable efficient product development handoffs within product squad.
*What Will Help You Be Successful** Demonstrated skills in business and functional requirements gathering, data analysis, functional testing, process mapping, workflow documentation, and UAT planning and execution.
- Highly proficient in analysis tools (e.g., SQL, PowerBI, Python, Microsoft Excel), backlog management tools (e.g., Azure DevOps, Jira), visual collaboration tools (e.g., Mural, Miro, or Freehand), and user experience/prototyping tools (e.g., Figma, Adobe XD, or Sketch).
- Experience supporting applications in a functional or business systems capacity.
- Experience building and supporting Canvas and Model\-Driven Power Apps, including designing user\-friendly interfaces, implementing business rules and logic and connecting to data sources like Dataverse and SQL using standard connectors.
- Ability to assist with testing, debugging, deployments, and environment management across Dev/Test/Prod.
- Experience developing and maintaining Power Automate workflows integrated with tools like SharePoint, Outlook, and MS Teams.
- Understanding of AI/ML concepts (e.g., LLMs, automation, predictive analytics, and intelligent agents).
- Solid understanding of design thinking and phases of the design process.
- Familiarity with APIs, integrations, and system interoperability concepts.
- Excellent time management skills.
- Experience collaborating with engineering, product management, and research teams in an agile environment.
- Experience working in distributed teams and using virtual collaborative tools.
*Your Educational and Professional Qualifications** Bachelor’s degree in relevant discipline or equivalent relevant work experience.
- 3\-5 years of experience.
*Our Hybrid Workplace*
Protiviti operates in a hybrid work environment, meaning all employees are expected to achieve a blend of in\-person and remote work. This model creates meaningful experiences for our people and clients while offering a flexible environment. The expected ratio of remote to in\-person work will vary by team and other business factors. Local and/or out\-of\-state travel is required based on our project and internal client commitments.\#LI\-Hybrid
Protiviti is not registered to hire or employ personnel in the following states – West Virginia, Alaska
Starting salary is based on a full\-time equivalent schedule. Placement in the range is dependent upon experience, skills and geographic work location. Below is the salary range for this job.
$98,000\.00 \- $157,000\.00
Our annual bonus plan provides eligible employees additional cash and/or discretionary stock compensation opportunities. Below is the bonus target opportunity for this job.
8%
The total cash range is estimated from the sum of the base salary range plus the bonus target opportunity. Below is the estimated total cash range for this job.
$105,840\.00 \- $169,560\.00
Employees are eligible for medical, dental, and vision coverages, FSA and HSA healthcare accounts, life and accident insurance, adoption and fertility assistance, paid parental leave up to 10 weeks, and short/long term disability. We offer eligible employees a company 401(k) savings and investment plan with an employer match of 50% on the first 6% of your contributions. We provide Choice Time Off (CTO) for vacation, personal needs, and sick time. The amount of (CTO) varies based on years of service. New hires receive up to 20 days of CTO per calendar year. Protiviti also recognizes up to 11 paid holidays each calendar year.
Learn more about the variety of rewards we offer at Protiviti at https://www.protiviti.com/sites/default/files/2026\-01/2026\_u.s.\_benefit\_highlights.pdf.
Any benefits outlined are part of our reward offerings for full\-time employees in the U.S. Your Open Enrollment materials, insurance contracts, plan documents and Summary Plan Descriptions together comprise the official plan document which legally governs the administration of your benefit plans. Protiviti reserves the right to terminate or amend your benefit plans in any way and at any time.
Protiviti is an Equal Opportunity Employer. M/F/Disability/Veteran
As part of Protiviti’s employment process, any offer of employment is contingent upon successful completion of a background check.
Protiviti is committed to being an equal employment employer offering opportunities to all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. If you believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or to apply for a position, please contact us by sending an email to HRSolutions@roberthalf.com or call 1\.855\.744\.6947 for assistance.
In your email please include the following:* The specific accommodation requested to complete the employment application.
- The location(s) (city, state) to which you would like to apply.
For positions located in San Francisco, CA: Protiviti will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.
For positions located in Los Angeles County, CA: Protiviti will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.
Protiviti is not registered to hire or employ personnel in the following states – West Virginia, Alaska.
Protiviti is not licensed or registered as a public accounting firm and does not issue opinions on financial statements or offer attestation services.JOB LOCATION
IL PRO CHICAGO
Salary Context
This $98K-$169K range is above the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $100K across 15465 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 26,159 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 91% of the market. At Protiviti, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $166,983 based on 13,781 positions with disclosed compensation. Senior-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $227,400. This role's midpoint ($133K) sits 20% below the category median. Disclosed range: $98K to $169K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Engineering Manager ($293,500) and AI Architect ($292,900). By seniority level: Entry: $76,880; Mid: $131,300; Senior: $227,400; Director: $244,288; VP: $234,620.
Protiviti AI Hiring
Protiviti has 4 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across AI/ML Engineer. Positions span Chicago, IL, US, New York, NY, US, St. Louis, MO, US. Compensation range: $169K - $266K.
Location Context
AI roles in Chicago pay a median of $202,350 across 310 tracked positions. That's 10% above the national median.
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 26,159 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 2,416 entry-level, 16,247 mid-level, 5,153 senior, and 2,343 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 7% of the market (1,863 positions). The remaining 24,200 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $184,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $244,000. The 90th percentile reaches $309,400. Highest-paying categories: AI Engineering Manager ($293,500 median, 28 roles); AI Architect ($292,900 median, 108 roles); AI Safety ($274,200 median, 19 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 26,159 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (23,752), AI Software Engineer (598), AI Product Manager (594). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (2,416) are outnumbered by mid-level (16,247) and senior (5,153) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 2,343 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 7% of all AI roles (1,863 positions), with 24,200 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $184,000. Top-quartile roles start at $244,000, and the 90th percentile reaches $309,400. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Engineering Manager roles lead at $293,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $122,200. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Rag (16,749 postings), Aws (8,932 postings), Rust (7,660 postings), Python (3,815 postings), Azure (2,678 postings), Gcp (2,247 postings), Prompt Engineering (1,469 postings), Openai (1,269 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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