Engagement Manager (Strategy & Data/AI Transformation)

Who is Artefact?

Artefact is a next-generation strategy and data consulting firm dedicated to transforming organisations through data and AI. We combine the rigour of top-tier strategy consulting with deep expertise in data, digital and analytics to help clients achieve tangible business impact.

With 2,500+ consultants, data scientists and engineers, we work with global leaders such as Samsung, L’Oréal, Orange and Sanofi. Our Zurich office is at the heart of Artefact’s growth, advising clients on their most pressing strategic challenges — from AI strategy and governance to digital transformation roadmaps and new business model design.

Main Responsibilities

As an Engagement Manager in our Zurich or Lausanne office, you will work at the intersection of strategy consulting and data and AI delivery. You will:

• Strategy Development: Work with client leadership teams to address high-stakes questions. How can AI reshape our business model? How should we govern and organise for data? Which strategic programmes deliver the most impact?
• Structured Problem-Solving: Break complex challenges down into decisions a client can act on, combining consulting rigour with a working knowledge of what current AI can and cannot actually do.
• Solution Design: Turn a business question into a solution shape — what data it depends on, what kind of platform or product it should sit on, and what “good” looks like once it is built. You will do this alongside our data scientists and engineers, and you will be accountable for whether the design survives contact with production.
• Project Delivery: Run engagements end to end, from hypothesis framing and market and competitor analysis through to data maturity assessments, client workshops, governance design and implementation roadmaps.
• Feasibility & Economics: Own the answer to "will this work, and what will it cost". The evaluation approach, the unit economics per query or per case, and the point at which the business case stops closing.
• Client Engagement: Work closely with C-level stakeholders and business unit leaders. You will build trusted relationships, communicate recommendations with clarity, and keep the work aligned to what the client is actually trying to decide.
• Team Leadership: Lead mixed teams of consultants, data scientists and engineers. You are the person who can tell whether the technical plan is realistic, and the person the client believes when you say that it is.
• Knowledge & Practice Building: Contribute to the growth of Artefact's Zurich and Lausanne offices by shaping new offerings, creating intellectual capital - frameworks, thought pieces, benchmarks - and taking part in business development.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for someone who can hold a technical position and a commercial one at the same time, and lead a team through both. The strongest candidates meet most of the following.

• Education: A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Business, Economics or a related field. A strong technical foundation counts for more with us than where you studied.
• Work Experience: Five to eight years across consulting and technology delivery, including at least one dedicated AI or data project.
• Business Acumen & AI Fluency: A strong dual affinity for business and technology. You have a deep working understanding of modern data and AI concepts — generative AI and LLMs, retrieval, predictive machine learning, cloud architectures — and of their practical business applications. You are capable of scoping AI use cases and of discussing technical constraints and opportunities confidently with C-level stakeholders.
• Technical Depth: You have owned the technical shape of AI work, not only its business case. You think in terms of enterprise architecture — how a solution fits the existing landscape, what it needs from data and governance, and how it scales from pilot to full rollout — and can defend those choices to technical and commercial stakeholders alike. You will not be writing production code, but you should have been close enough to it to be credible with the engineers with which you will collaborate.
• Analytical & Problem-Solving Skills: Strong quantitative and analytical skills, and the judgement to know which number actually decides the question. You are comfortable getting to a defensible estimate with your assumptions stated out loud.
• Communication & Interpersonal Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication. You can take a technical trade-off to a non-technical sponsor without flattening it, and be challenged by an engineer without retreating into abstraction. You enjoy working in teams and in front of clients.
• Languages: Fluency in German/French and English, written and spoken, is strongly preferred. 
• Work Eligibility: You must be eligible to work in Switzerland.

Why Join Us

• Strategy and the Build: Artefact is neither a traditional strategy consultancy nor a pure technology player. You will move between the boardroom and the build, and be expected to be credible in both.
• Engineers, not hand-offs: Our 2,500 people include the data scientists and engineers you will work beside on the same engagement - not a delivery organisation you hand a slide deck to.
• Zurich Office Impact: As part of a growing Swiss team you will have visibility and impact from the first day. You will help shape Artefact's footprint in the region and work directly with senior leadership.
• Learning & Growth: Regular training in both consulting method and AI and data capability, combined with international exposure.
• Culture of Doers: Innovation, action, collaboration. We are entrepreneurial and fast-moving, committed to delivering impact while supporting each other's growth.

This position is based in Zürich or Lausanne.