Forward Deployed Product Manager, AI Labs Foundry Team

Are you ready to make an impact? At West Monroe, we believe the next generation of consulting will be built by small, highly capable teams that ship real software, solve hard problems, and create measurable value quickly. We are hiring a  Senior / Principal Forward Deployed Product Manager to help build and deploy Operational Intelligence solutions for clients. This is a role for people who lead with curiosity about how work really happens; who want to spend time in the field observing operations, understanding workflows firsthand, shaping products in real environments, driving adoption, and helping turn new ideas into durable capabilities. You will work directly with clients and cross-functional teammates to deliver production-ready solutions that improve how businesses operate. One engagement might involve embedding with a client team for days, mapping how work actually flows (not how it's documented), and shaping an application that simplifies a fragmented process. Another might involve running a pilot with frontline users, catching adoption failures through direct observation, and helping client leaders understand the value created. The work is varied, fast-moving, and centered on real-world adoption.  This role is best suited for someone who wants to build more than document, who treats field research as the foundation for product decisions (not a phase to get through), and who wants to help shape both client outcomes and the future of West Monroe's operational intelligence capabilities. About the role  You will play a leading role in discovering user needs, shaping product direction, and driving adoption in client environments. You will work across ethnographic research, workflow design, pilot execution, stakeholder alignment, training, and handoff. You will move from field observation to synthesis to product definition to measurable business impact, often in close partnership with users, client leaders, and an engineering counterpart. You will operate as part of a small, high-autonomy deployment team paired with a forward deployed engineer. Together, you own the full client outcome. You shape what gets built; your counterpart builds it. The quality of your fieldwork upstream determines whether the product gets adopted downstream. You will also contribute to repeatable research methods, adoption playbooks, and reusable assets that can be applied across engagements. Every deployment should make the next one better. This is not just a delivery role. It is a build role; for products, for methods, and for the team's capabilities over time. By the time you have completed a few projects, you will have shaped and launched products across a wide range of environments, business problems, and operational contexts, with more variety and end-to-end ownership than many traditional product roles offer. What you will do Conduct deep, field-based research by embedding with client teams to understand how work actually happens; shadowing operators through shifts, mapping workflows end to end, identifying pain points and workarounds, and surfacing the tacit knowledge that lives in people's heads rather than in documentation Synthesize messy field observations into coherent models of how work flows, where real friction exists (versus where people say it exists), and what interventions will survive contact with operational reality Design lo-fi prototypes and workflow concepts with process owners in the field; translate what you learned into product artifacts that help teams move quickly from ambiguous problems to usable solutions Partner closely with your engineering counterpart to shape product direction, make tradeoffs, and identify where automation, AI, or intelligent tooling fits into a client's operational workflows Lead pilot programs with real users, gather structured feedback, and refine products based on what drives adoption and value; catch adoption failures early through ongoing observation, not just dashboards Drive research-informed training and enablement that fits users' actual mental models, so new tools are understood, trusted, and used in day-to-day operations Measure and communicate business impact by baselining current performance, tracking outcomes, and helping stakeholders understand the value created Support successful handoff by building adoption roadmaps, documentation, and internal client capability to sustain and expand usage after deployment Contribute deployment learnings back to the platform and methods teams: recurring workflow patterns, missing capabilities, templates that should be codified, approaches that worked and approaches that did not Help build and refine service design playbooks, discovery methods, and adoption approaches that other team members can run independently We are looking for people who care deeply about understanding how work really happens and turning that understanding into products that real people adopt. You are likely a strong fit if: You are energized by messy, real-world workflows and want to understand them firsthand before prescribing solutions You have depth in qualitative research methods; contextual inquiry, shadowing, ethnographic observation, participatory design; and you know how to synthesize what you find into something actionable You are comfortable making product decisions, not just informing them; you own what gets built for a client, shaped by what you learned in the field You are technically conversant enough to have real tradeoff conversations with engineers about what is feasible, what is expensive, and where intelligent automation fits You can move between discovery, prototyping, delivery, and adoption without needing someone else to connect the dots You are strong in ambiguous environments and can create clarity where none exists You care about measurable outcomes, not just shipping features You can build rapport quickly with people who are not knowledge workers and