AI & Automations Associate

HG Overview Hamster Garage is a partner management agency based in Chicago. Our expertise spans across the partnerships and affiliates channel, encompassing affiliate marketing, brand partnerships, podcasts, influencer marketing, and more. We work with leading brands that are in a high-growth phase, like Airbnb, Canva, Uber, Brex, Masterclass, and more. HG is a newer (established mid-2019), lean, and growth-minded agency working with innovative brands to meet their acquisition needs. We're growing fast and looking to add team members to grow with the agency. As we scale, we are investing in our internal operations to ensure our systems are secure, our tools are well-managed, and our processes are automated wherever possible. Role Overview We are hiring someone to be the person who builds things at Hamster Garage, using AI and no-code/low-code tools to eliminate repetitive work across the agency, and who owns our technology stack end to end. This isn't a project with a fixed scope. Work will come on an ongoing basis from every part of the company: account teams, finance, people ops, the COO. You'll spot opportunities, propose solutions, and ship them, using tools like Zapier, Lovable, or other low-code/no-code tools. Some weeks that means building a new internal tool from scratch; others it means automating a reporting workflow or fixing a broken integration. Alongside that, you'll be the single point of ownership for our software stack: what tools we use, who has access to what, what we are paying for, and every integration that keeps our process running smoothly. Our clients are prominent brands, and we can't afford loose ends on access control or data security — so this half of the role matters too, just as much as the building half. You will report directly to the COO. What You Will Do Build and automate: Identify opportunities and ship automations that remove repetitive work for various teams across the organization, in collaboration with the relevant stakeholders. Own the software stack and migrations: Manage provisioning and deprovisioning of employee and client access across all tools, keep an accurate license/cost tracker, and flag waste or anomalies. Lead the technical side in case of any software migrations. Keep infrastructure secure: Ensure access is correct from day one and fully revoked the moment someone departs, no exceptions. Manage hardware: Maintain hardware inventory diligently across various locations. Document as you go: Processes and automations should be documented well enough that anybody can pick them up, and they can easily be revisited for improvements. What Success Looks Like At least one meaningful automation shipped per month. New employees have full tool access on day one; departing employees have it fully revoked within 24 hours. The COO can ask "how many licenses do we have for X" and get an instant, accurate answer. Systems and processes are documented well enough to survive turnover. What We Are Looking For 1-3 years of experience as a software engineer. Minimum Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering. Excellent written and verbal English communication skills. You will coordinate with US-based team members and document processes for a distributed team. Hands-on experience building with automation tools (Zapier, Lovable, or similar) — you see a repetitive process and immediately think about how to automate it. Genuine enthusiasm for using AI tools to solve problems, not just familiarity with them. Proactive and low-supervision: you report to a busy COO and are expected to spot issues and act, not wait to be asked. Comfortable with core SaaS tools (Google Workspace, Slack, Notion) and with Google Sheets/Excel for tracking. Nice to have: Experience in a startup or agency environment and prior tool-development experience.