Forward-Deployed AI Solutions Lead

About the role

Here at Scotts Miracle-Gro there is no such thing as a typical day. Our culture is constantly energized by new and exciting growth opportunities and at a rapid pace. Below are details on an open job. If the role interests you and you would like to be considered we encourage you to apply! We are looking for a AI Solutions Lead who will join our team. As a Solutions Lead, you will play a crucial role in leading and managing the technical aspects of data science projects. This role requires a combination of strong technical expertise, project management skills, and the ability to guide the team towards successful project delivery. Role Summary You will sit side-by-side with leaders and practitioners in your assigned function - learning their workflows, understanding their pain points, and helping them accomplish their goals through AI. Sometimes that means creating custom solutions together; other times it means unlocking AI capabilities already in the platforms they use today. Your job is finding the fastest path to value - create, configure, or enable. This role is part of our hub-and-spoke AI CoE model: a central AI team provides strategic alignment and governance, while forward-deployed specialists bring hands-on AI fluency directly to the front lines of the business. In this role you will: Embed and Co-Develop: Immerse yourself in the function - attend planning meetings, reviews, and standups to develop deep domain context and identify high-value AI opportunities. Partner with practitioners to improve speed, quality, and efficiency - whether by creating custom tools, activating AI features in existing platforms (ERP, BI, CRM, planning tools, research/data platforms, etc.), or both. Where existing tools fall short, develop solutions across key use cases: process automation, forecasting and optimization, reporting and synthesis, natural language querying, document/workflow automation, and agentic workflows (proactive alerts, automated briefs, anomaly flagging). Continuously assess evolving vendor AI capabilities and recommend when to buy, configure, or create. Deliver and Enable: Take solutions from concept to delivery - own the lifecycle from rapid prototyping through deployment, monitoring, and optimization. Leverage LLMs, RAG architectures, agentic frameworks, and modern AI tooling to deliver scalable solutions that integrate cleanly with existing systems and data infrastructure. Train and upskill the function on AI tools - both custom-created and native platform features - with documentation, playbooks, and hands-on enablement. Surface reusable learnings and components back to the central CoE. Adhere to CoE standards for responsible AI and data governance. What you'll need to be successful: Required: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Business, Data Science, Computer Science, or a related field appropriate to the function. Candidates from non-technical backgrounds with demonstrated AI fluency are encouraged to apply. 5+ years in a role combining business/domain expertise with applied AI, data science, or analytics - with experience delivering AI-powered solutions for business users. AI Fluency and Mindset (non-negotiable): Deep AI fluency - you use AI tools daily and naturally reach for AI to solve problems. This is the core requirement. Proficiency with AI-native development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) to rapidly create functional solutions. Experience using AI coding tools to go from idea to working product - and the judgment to know when a solution is ready for the team to rely on. Solutions mindset: you think in terms of reusable products and tools, not one-off analyses. When you solve a problem, you deliver something the team can use repeatedly without you in the loop. Technical: Applied experience with generative AI concepts: LLMs, prompt engineering, RAG, and how to evaluate and apply AI tools to business problems. Ability to create AI-powered solutions end-to-end - from concept through a working tool that users interact with. Working knowledge of cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and data/visualization tools (Power BI, Tableau, or function-specific tools). Python and SQL proficiency is a plus but not required if you can demonstrate equivalent capability through AI-assisted development. Business: Genuine curiosity about the function - how work gets done, how decisions are made, how practitioners think. Clear communicator who can translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders. Comfortable in ambiguity. Collaborative. Biased toward speed and iteration. Preferred: Industry experience relevant to the function. Prior forward-deployed, solutions, or embedded specialist role. Familiarity with function-specific platforms and tools. What makes this role different: You won't sit in an AI lab. You'll be in the room with the business - in their standups, on their channels, understanding their deadlines. Your success is measured not by how mu