AI Automation Engineer
Pay Rate; $52-$70/hour
Position Overview
We are seeking an experienced AI Automation Engineer who has evolved from building and supporting production-grade automation solutions into delivering practical AI-powered capabilities. This is not a pure RPA role, nor is it a pure AI engineering role. We are looking for an engineer who understands when to use deterministic automation, when to use AI, and how to combine the two to solve real business problems.
The ideal candidate began their career building and owning production automations, developed deeper engineering skills through Python and API-based integrations, and has since started delivering AI-enabled solutions using LLMs. This individual is pragmatic, business-focused, and capable of selecting the right technology for the problem rather than applying a single approach everywhere.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, deploy, and support enterprise automation solutions using RPA, Python, APIs, and AI technologies.
- Own automation solutions throughout their lifecycle, including deployment, monitoring, exception handling, support, maintenance, and continuous improvement.
- Develop integrations between enterprise systems using REST APIs and modern automation frameworks.
- Build and deploy practical AI-enabled solutions that solve real business challenges and are used by internal or external users.
- Evaluate business processes and determine whether traditional automation, AI, or a hybrid approach provides the best outcome.
- Partner with business stakeholders to identify opportunities, define requirements, and deliver measurable business value.
- Develop reliable, maintainable, and secure solutions aligned with enterprise standards and governance requirements.
- Participate in architecture discussions regarding automation, AI adoption, orchestration, and emerging agentic technologies.
- Contribute to technical standards, documentation, monitoring, testing, and operational support processes.
- Collaborate across engineering, operations, security, and business teams to deliver scalable solutions.
The Profile We Are Seeking
Stage 1: Automation Foundation
Candidates should demonstrate a proven history of building and supporting production automation solutions.
Strong indicators include:
- Ownership of production RPA bots
- Exception handling and recovery logic
- Workflow orchestration
- Multi-system integrations
- Operational support and monitoring
- Enterprise-scale automation delivery
UiPath experience is strongly preferred.
Stage 2: Engineering Depth
Candidates should demonstrate movement beyond UI-level automation into software engineering and integration work.
Strong indicators include:
- Python development
- REST API integrations
- Automation architecture decisions
- System-to-system integrations
- Logging, monitoring, and testing practices
- Source control and software development discipline
Stage 3: AI Delivery
Candidates should have delivered AI-enabled functionality that has been used by real users.
Examples may include:
- Internal AI tools
- Production AI solutions
- Published repositories or applications
- LLM-enabled workflows
- AI-powered business process solutions
Experience with Claude skills, plug-ins, prompt design, system instruction design, retrieval workflows, or similar technologies is highly valued.
Stage 4: Agentic Growth Potential
While not required, candidates should demonstrate an interest in and understanding of emerging AI orchestration patterns.
Examples include:
- Multi-step AI agents
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Agent frameworks
- Tool-use orchestration
- AI evaluation and monitoring
This is viewed as a future growth area rather than a current requirement.
Required Qualifications
- 3+ years of hands-on experience building and supporting production RPA solutions.
- Strong experience with UiPath or similar enterprise RPA platforms.
- Demonstrated ownership of production automation solutions, including support, maintenance, troubleshooting, and enhancements.
- Hands-on experience building AI-enabled solutions that have been delivered to real users.
- Working proficiency with Python and REST APIs.
- Experience with enterprise software development practices, including:
- Version control
- Testing
- Logging
- Monitoring
- Experience working within enterprise environments that require:
- Security controls
- Access management
- Governance
- Change management
- Strong problem-solving, analytical, and communication skills.
- Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with technical and business stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
- Microsoft Power Platform, including:
- Power Automate
- Power Apps
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions.
- Embeddings and vector databases.
- Experience with Claude skills, plug-ins, or related AI ecosystems.
- Familiarity with Model Context Protocol (MCP).
- Experience with agent frameworks and AI orchestration platforms.
- AI evaluation, monitoring, and observability practices.
- Azure or Google Cloud Platform cloud platforms.
- CI/CD implementation experience.
- Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar delivery platforms.
- Experience within regulated industries such as:
- Insurance
- Financial Services
- Healthcare
