Citrin Cooperman's Applied AI Practice designs, builds and runs AI agents inside clients' businesses. Those clients are middle-market companies, private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, and enterprise clients our team has served for years.
As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you own the technical side of an engagement. You work in a pod with a Deployment Strategist, who owns the business case, the scope and the executive relationship. You own the architecture, the code, and whether the system holds up in production.
Most of our clients don't have large IT or data teams. A typical engagement starts with scattered data, an older ERP, a small IT staff, and a CFO who wants to see the controls before an agent touches the general ledger. You leave with a system in production and a client team that can run it.
WHAT YOU'LL BUILD
- Agents for sales, marketing, service, operations, finance and accounting work, connected to clients' ERPs, accounting systems and CRMs
- MCP servers, agent skills and integrations that give models safe access to client systems, written so the next engagement can reuse them
- Data pipelines that prepare client data for AI: you profile, clean, model and connect the sources before an agent depends on them
- Evaluation suites, monitoring and audit trails, so every agent ships with a measured accuracy baseline and every action it takes can be traced and reviewed
DISCOVERY AND DESIGN
- Run technical discovery with your Deployment Strategist: map the client's workflow, systems and data, then turn the business problem into an architecture
- Pick the right stack for each client: Anthropic or OpenAI models, AWS, Azure, GCP, Salesforce Agentforce, or a mix
- Build proofs of concept quickly, and know what it takes to turn one into a production system
DELIVERY AND PRODUCTION
- Own components from architecture through deployment, monitoring and handoff in the client's environment
- Get systems through client security reviews, access controls and data-handling requirements, including at regulated clients
- Train client teams to operate and extend what you deliver
PRACTICE BUILDING
- Turn what works into reference architectures, starter repos, eval templates and playbooks for the rest of the Practice
- Review designs and code from other engineers on the team
- Send field lessons and platform gaps back to the Practice and to our technology partners
What Success Looks Like in the First Year
- Systems in production at clients, each with a measured accuracy baseline and an audit trail
- Reference architectures and starter repos that other engagements reuse
- You meet the billable utilization target and earn strong client satisfaction scores
- Five to eight years of software engineering experience, including at least one production system you can walk us through in detail
- Client-facing technical delivery experience in consulting, professional services or a forward deployed role; this is a requirement
- Deep expertise in at least one platform: Salesforce, AWS, Azure, GCP, or a frontier lab ecosystem (Anthropic or OpenAI APIs, agent SDKs and tooling)
- Production experience with large language models: prompt design, tool use, agents and evaluation, including why an agent failed and what you would change
- Fluency in Python or a strongly typed language, and working SQL
- Experience designing APIs, data models and integrations, beyond using them
- Able to explain technical trade-offs to finance leaders and executives as clearly as to engineers
- Willing to travel about 25% of the time
Preferred Qualifications
- Finance and accounting operations experience: close, AP/AR, FP&A or audit
- Private equity experience: sponsor work, portfolio operations or value-creation plans
- Delivery in regulated industries such as financial services or healthcare
- Middle-market consulting, where clients have small IT teams and fixed budgets
- Certifications from Anthropic (Claude Certified Developer, Claude Certified Architect), Salesforce (Agentforce Specialist, Platform Developer I), AWS, Azure or GCP
- Experience with MCP, agent frameworks (Claude Agent/Messages SDK, OpenAI Agents SDK, LangGraph) or cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, Salesforce Data 360)
Skills Required
- Five to eight years of software engineering experience
- At least one production system that the candidate can explain in detail
- Client-facing technical delivery experience in consulting, professional services, or a forward deployed role
- Deep expertise in at least one of Salesforce, AWS, Azure, GCP, Anthropic, or OpenAI ecosystems
- Production experience with large language models, including prompt design, tool use, agents, and evaluation
- Fluency in Python or a strongly typed language
- Working SQL knowledge
- Experience designing APIs, data models, and integrations
- Ability to explain technical trade-offs clearly to finance leaders, executives, and engineers
- Willingness to travel approximately 25% of the time
- Finance and accounting operations experience, such as close, AP/AR, FP&A, or audit
- Private equity experience, including sponsor work, portfolio operations, or value-creation plans
- Experience delivering solutions in regulated industries such as financial services or healthcare
- Middle-market consulting experience with clients having small IT teams and fixed budgets
- Certifications from Anthropic, Salesforce, AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Experience with MCP, agent frameworks, or cloud data platforms
Citrin Cooperman Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Citrin Cooperman and has not been reviewed or approved by Citrin Cooperman.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Base pay is considered competitive for public accounting and aligned to major metro markets. Market-consistent salaries help compensation feel fair even amid demanding workloads.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — PTO is highlighted as generous, with paid holidays and even a staff sabbatical program. These policies provide meaningful time away that helps counterbalance peak-season intensity.
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Parental & Family Support — Paid parental leave is explicitly offered and viewed positively. This support strengthens the overall package for employees prioritizing family needs.
Citrin Cooperman Insights
What We Do
Citrin Cooperman is one of the largest professional services firms in the United States, founded in 1979. It provides comprehensive tax, accounting, and advisory services to middle-market companies and high-net-worth individuals. The firm delivers a tailored, integrated business approach and proactive guidance to help clients achieve their business and personal financial goals across various global markets.




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