Forward Deployed Engineer (AI-First)

Forward Deployed Engineer (AI-First)

Full-Time | Remote (South Africa) | EST Hours

About the Company

• Established IT services provider (est. 2003) specializing in managed IT for businesses ranging from 10 to 500 employees
• Supports 160+ networks and thousands of end users, with client relationships spanning 15+ years
• Recognized experts across IT design, implementation, and support, for both users and infrastructure
• Focused on strategic solutions that lower operating costs and improve efficiency for clients

About the Role

• Internal, AI-first engineering position embedded directly into service delivery, support, and operations workflows
• Spots friction points and rapidly builds the tools to solve them, not a traditional "ticket queue" role
• Defined by the problems you find, not a fixed backlog

What You'll Do

• Work side-by-side with service delivery, support, and operations teams managing 160+ client networks and thousands of end users
• Rapidly prototype and ship internal tools, reporting pipelines, ticket triage assistants, network health dashboards, client-facing status updates, process trackers
• Own integration work across the existing stack (PSA/RMM tools, databases, cloud storage, internal dashboards, communication tools)
• Build with and around LLM/AI APIs (Claude, GPT, etc.) as core building blocks, not bolt-ons
• Iterate quickly based on direct team feedback, short build/test/refine loops
• Translate ad hoc requests into working systems (e.g. "can this report auto-generate?", "can we flag at-risk accounts automatically?")
• Document what you build so tools remain maintainable, not one-off scripts

What We're Looking For

• Strong full-stack or backend engineering skills, Python and/or JavaScript preferred
• Hands-on experience building with LLM APIs, prompting, tool use, structured outputs, agentic workflows
• Comfort with ambiguity and evolving specs
• Data integration/ETL experience (APIs, spreadsheets, CRMs/PSA tools, databases)
• Startup, consulting, or internal-tools background
• Strong communication skills with non-technical team members
• Comfortable working hours aligned to EST while based in South Africa

What Makes This Role AI-First

• Default posture is "how can AI solve this" before "how do we build this manually"
• Fluency in AI-assisted development (e.g. Claude Code) expected, not a bonus
• Naturally explores how agentic workflows and automation can compress operational and client-facing work

What Success Looks Like

• Workflows across service delivery, support, and operations become measurably faster and less manual
• Tools are self-serve enough for non-technical team members to use independently
• A visible, growing pipeline of shipped and iterated internal tools