Forward Deployed Engineer (Short-term Contract)

As a Forward-Deployed Engineer at ShipBob, you'll embed directly within business teams to eliminate manual, repetitive, error-prone workflows. You'll map out how work really happens, identify automation opportunities, and rapidly build end-to-end solutions—from workflow discovery through production deployment.  

This is an AI-first engineering role where you'll design and deploy agentic workflows using code, APIs, and AI agents. You'll work on everything from micro-automations to large-scale AI-driven solutions, bridging the gap between operations and engineering while maintaining ShipBob's structured engineering principles.  

This role is ideal for a high-agency engineer who loves being close to real users and thrives in ambiguity. You iterate fast and ship working solutions quickly, with a proven ability to translate modern AI capabilities into meaningful operational outcomes while leveraging AI-assisted coding to operationalize automation at scale. 

You think like a founder, thrive in ambiguity, and are excited to challenge assumptions to deliver impactful solutions.

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What you’ll do: 

• Embed with operational teams to observe workflows, uncover root causes, and identify where automation and AI agents can meaningfully reduce friction.
• Break down complex, manual processes into clean system flows and technical requirements.
• Build AI agents and agentic workflows to automate repetitive tasks. 
• Own the full lifecycle: observe → prototype → validate with domain experts → harden → productionize. 
• Build reliable systems with logging, retries, monitoring, and guardrails for edge cases. 
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering when automations interface with core systems; operate independently for everything else. 
• Validate solutions with domain experts and iterate quickly based on feedback. 
• Document and publish reusable modules into our Automation Hub that accelerate future automation projects. 
• Drive fast iteration: ship small, gather feedback, and improve quickly.

Candidates Also Search: Remote Software/ IT jobs

What you’ll bring to the table: 

• 1-3 years of software engineering experience, ideally in fast-paced SaaS, B2B platform, or high-growth startup environments. Exceptional new graduates with a strong portfolio of AI agents, workflow automation projects, or hackathon wins are encouraged to apply. 
• Strong full-stack engineering skills, including experience designing APIs and building end-to-end systems. 
• Demonstrated experience shipping AI-powered or automation-driven features into production, using LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and translating model outputs into real operational value. 
• Solid understanding of modern AI/LLM foundations such as, agent architectures and orchestration patterns, embedding models and retrieval pipelines and vector databases.  
• Hands-on experience with prompt engineering and building systems that combine AI inference with deterministic logic. 
• Ability to quickly learn operational domains and design lightweight, elegant solutions to real business problems. 
• Strong bias for action: you move fast, iterate quickly, and are comfortable validating ideas through working prototypes. 
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally with non-technical stakeholders. 
• Experience in the following: 
  • SQL or NoSQL databases. 
  • JSON for data interchange. 
  • RESTful API design and integration.
  • .NET for backend development. 
  • Python for AI/automation scripting. 
  • Frontend fundamentals (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and modern frameworks like Vue.js or React. 
  • Familiarity with workflow automation platforms such as n8n, Zapier, or similar.