Forward Deployed Engineer, AI and Automation

Montréal region, Quebec | Full-time, permanent | On-site

Base salary up to C$200,000, plus a performance incentive tied to the measurable business results of your work

About the opportunity

Our client is an established Canadian manufacturer with a growing consumer and online business. Leadership has committed to rebuilding how the company runs using AI and modern software, and they are hiring an engineer to lead that work from the inside.

You will work side by side with the teams running the business day to day, figure out where the real problems are, and build software that fixes them. You will take things from first conversation through to design, build, launch and adoption. One project might automate a finance process. The next might connect the ERP to an outside platform or get clean data in front of the production floor.

This is a hands-on, high-ownership role in a company that moves quickly. Expect some weeks to run longer than 40 hours, especially around launches.

What you'll do

• Work directly with sales, online, finance, supply chain, production and product teams to find the problems worth solving
• Turn unclear processes into concrete requirements, measurable goals and software that holds up in production
• Build full-stack applications, integrations, data pipelines and AI-powered tools on modern cloud infrastructure
• Connect business systems including ERP, accounting, online sales channels, shipping, spreadsheets and plant data
• Apply LLMs, retrieval and agents where they actually improve results, not for show
• Own what you ship: testing, access control, monitoring, documentation, training and support
• Work with internal users and, when needed, customers, vendors and technology partners
• Turn one-off fixes into reusable tools and shared standards

In your first three months

• Identify the highest-impact processes and build a ranked roadmap with clear starting metrics
• Launch at least two tools that people actually use and that measurably improve results or turnaround time
• Put basic engineering practices in place: version control, environments, secrets management, monitoring, testing and rollback
• Set up a regular feedback loop between users, managers and the technical roadmap
• Present a plan for the following quarter that ties engineering work to revenue, margin, cash flow, risk or service

Requirements

What we're looking for

• A track record of building production software yourself and staying accountable for it after launch
• Solid engineering skills in Python, TypeScript/JavaScript or similar, plus SQL and API integration
• Real experience putting AI or automation into a live business process, including how you measured quality and handled mistakes
• The judgment to understand a business problem, question assumptions and pick a solution that fits the value at stake
• Comfort working across frontend, backend, data and infrastructure
• Clear communication with both technical and non-technical people, from the shop floor to the owners
• Initiative and good judgment when information is incomplete and structure is light
• Eligibility to work in Canada and the ability to work on-site regularly in the Montréal region (relocation support available)

Background in manufacturing, online retail, ERP, accounting systems, logistics or industrial data is a plus but not required.

French is a strong asset. English is required, since much of the work involves English-speaking partners and platforms across North America.