Forward-Deployed AI Solutions Lead

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, Git Hub 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…