Founding Member, Senior Innovation Engineer (Delhi NCR - Hybrid)

Location: Delhi, DL, India
Department: Information Technology

Job Description

The Innovation Engineer rapidly turns high-value business opportunities into working Digital & AI solutions. This hands-on role designs, builds, integrates, and tests prototypes, agents, workflows, automations, and applications that can be evaluated with real users before the firm commits to larger-scale investment.

Working closely with Digital Solution Consultants, business subject-matter experts, and enterprise technology partners, the Innovation Engineer owns the technical execution of individual Foundry initiatives, from technical discovery and architecture through prototype development, iteration, feasibility validation, and transition planning. The role balances speed with sound engineering judgment and helps determine whether a concept can be delivered securely, responsibly, and at the appropriate level of scale.

This position also represents a unique opportunity to join as a founding member of our new Digital Innovation Foundry hub in New Delhi. As one of the hub's earliest team members, the Innovation Engineer will have the opportunity to help establish how the team operates, collaborates, and delivers innovative solutions while contributing to the growth of a new strategic capability for the firm.

J.S. Held is continuing to define the development technology stack, cloud patterns, environments, and CI/CD capabilities needed to support innovation at scale. As an early member of the Digital Innovation Foundry, the Innovation Engineer will partner closely with IT, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Architecture, Data, and other technology teams to help shape practical standards, reusable patterns, development environments, and delivery practices. The role requires a builder mindset, strong cloud development experience, comfort with ambiguity, and the judgment to distinguish rapid experimentation from production-ready engineering.

Key Responsibilities

Rapid Prototyping & Solution Development

• Build functional prototypes, proofs of concept, agents, workflows, automations, integrations, and lightweight applications that allow opportunities to be tested with real users.
• Translate business problems, user journeys, requirements, and acceptance criteria into practical technical solutions in close partnership with Digital Solution Consultants.
• Use rapid, iterative development methods to incorporate user feedback and improve functionality, reliability, and usability.
• Select fit-for-purpose technologies and patterns for each experiment while considering speed, security, supportability, reuse, and the likely path to scale.
• Document technical assumptions, architecture decisions, dependencies, known limitations, and lessons learned so that decisions are transparent and reusable.
• Demonstrate working solutions to business and technical stakeholders and explain technical trade-offs in clear, decision-oriented language.

AI, Agents & Automation Engineering

• Design and build AI-enabled solutions using Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility, Power Platform, Azure services, and other approved technologies.
• Develop and evaluate AI agents, retrieval-augmented generation patterns, prompt and orchestration logic, knowledge grounding, tool use, workflow automation, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Integrate solutions with enterprise data, content, APIs, applications, and identity services while following approved access and security patterns.
• Evaluate solution quality, grounding, accuracy, reliability, performance, cost, and failure modes using test cases appropriate to the use case.
• Build reusable components, connectors, templates, and patterns where they can accelerate multiple initiatives and reduce fragmented point solutions.
• Identify when a low-code, configuration-based, custom-development, or existing-platform approach is most appropriate.

Cloud, Architecture & Technical Feasibility

• Design and develop cloud-based solutions in Microsoft Azure.
• Conduct technical discovery and feasibility assessment covering architecture, data, integrations, identity and access, security, privacy, performance, scalability, observability, support, and cost.
• Partner with IT and Enterprise Architecture to define appropriate solution patterns and clarify the boundary between rapid Foundry experimentation and enterprise production delivery.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, and constraints early and recommend whether an initiative should proceed, be redesigned, transition to an enterprise team, or stop.
• Contribute technical estimates and delivery options to initiative-level business cases and scale decisions.
• Ensure prototypes use representative data responsibly and do not create unsupported production dependencies or unmanaged technical risk.

Engineering Foundations & Delivery Practices

• Partner with IT to help establish the development technology stack, source-control approach, environments, infrastructure patterns, deployment methods, and engineering guardrails for the Foundry.
• Help define and mature CI/CD practices for prototypes and solutions, recognizing that these capabilities are still being established rather than assuming mature pipelines already exist.
• Apply sound software engineering practices including modular design, version control, code review, automated testing, documentation, dependency management, secrets management, and secure configuration.
• Work with IT to define practical development, test, quality-assurance, and production pathways appropriate to solution complexity and risk.
• Implement monitoring, logging, usage telemetry, and cost visibility where appropriate to support evaluation and future supportability.
• Prepare validated solutions for transition by documenting architecture, code, configuration, data flows, deployment needs, operational requirements, and known risks.

Collaboration, Reuse & Scale

• Work closely with Digital Solution Consultants and business users throughout discovery, piloting, testing, and iteration rather than treating development as a downstream handoff.
• Collaborate with IT, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Architecture, Data, Legal, Compliance, and other partners to incorporate enterprise requirements at the appropriate stage.
• Provide initiative-level technical progress, feasibility findings, risks, cost considerations, and recommendations to support portfolio reviews and investment decisions.
• Contribute reusable technical standards, reference implementations, templates, and playbooks to strengthen the Foundry operating model.
• Mentor non-engineering team members on technical possibilities, constraints, and responsible experimentation, and support knowledge transfer to teams that assume ownership of successful solutions.
• · Stay current on relevant AI, cloud, automation, and development capabilities, and evaluate emerging tools based on business fit rather than novelty.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, cloud application development, solution engineering, AI engineering, platform engineering, or a related field, including hands-on responsibility for designing and delivering working solutions.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience developing AI-enabled solutions using Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility, Power Platform, Azure AI services, or closely comparable enterprise platforms.
• Strong proficiency in one or more modern programming languages such as Python, C#, TypeScript, or JavaScript, with experience building APIs, services, integrations, and user-facing applications.
• Hands-on cloud development experience in Microsoft Azure is required; experience across multiple cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, is strongly preferred.
• Experience with cloud architecture, APIs, event-driven or serverless patterns, identity and access management, data stores, enterprise integrations, monitoring, and secure application design.
• Experience with AI application patterns such as agents, retrieval-augmented generation, model and prompt orchestration, grounding, evaluation, tool use, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
• Experience establishing or improving development foundations, including source control, branching, automated testing, environments, infrastructure as code, deployment automation, and CI/CD practices.
• Ability to prototype rapidly while making clear distinctions between experimental code and production-ready solutions, including the risks and work required to transition between them.
• · Working knowledge of security, privacy, responsible AI, data governance, resiliency, performance, cost management, observability, and production support considerations.
• · Strong communication and collaboration skills, including the ability to explain architecture choices and technical trade-offs to business leaders, subject-matter experts, architects, engineers, and risk partners.
• · Experience in professional services, consulting, or another expert-led, knowledge-intensive environment is beneficial.
• · Self-directed builder mindset with the ability to create structure in an evolving environment, partner constructively with enterprise IT, and balance delivery speed with reusable and supportable engineering practices

Additional Information

We welcome applications from individuals with disabilities.  If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable adjustment in relation to any of the above, please email jobs@jsheld.com and include “Applicant Adjustment” within the subject line with your request and contact information. 

Some of the Benefits We Have Include

J.S. Held understands all of our employees are people and sometimes life needs flexibility.  We work to always provide an environment that best supports and suits our team’s needs.

• Our flexible work environment allows employees to work remotely when needed
• Comprehensive Medical Insurance

Other Duties

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you have read the J.S. Held Online Privacy Notice and hereby freely and unambiguously give informed consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of your personal information as required and described therein.

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EEO and Job Accommodations

We embrace diversity and our commitment to building a team and environment that fosters professional and personal enrichment is unwavering. We are greater when we are equal!

J.S. Held is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to hiring a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, disability, protected Veteran status, age, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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Company Description

Are you looking to join an organization that is growing and dynamic? What about a high-energy, collaborative environment that rewards hard work? 

J.S. Held is a global consulting firm that combines technical, scientific, financial, and strategic expertise to advise clients seeking to realize value and mitigate risk. Our professionals serve as trusted advisors to organizations facing high stakes matters demanding urgent attention, staunch integrity, proven experience, clear-cut analysis, and an understanding of both tangible and intangible assets. 

The firm provides a comprehensive suite of services, products, and data that enable clients to navigate complex, contentious, and often catastrophic situations.