AI Integration & Automation Lead

Job Description

Job Description

Department: Information Technology / Operations

Reports To: Owner / CEO

Employment Type: Full-time, exempt

Start Date: Immediate

Company Overview:

Lightfire is a Tamarac, FL–based company and the parent of several smaller businesses and divisions, each working in a different area. Our core operations include the distribution and online retail of vapor and e-cigarette products, selling to consumers through our ecommerce store and supplying retail and wholesale accounts. These operations run on a cloud ecommerce platform, a cloud warehouse management system, and connected shipping, accounting and marketing tools.

This position is based on-site and supports the entire organization umbrella: the main company and its affiliated businesses and divisions, including those that operate separately from Lightfire day to day.

Position Summary:

We are looking for someone who has actually built and deployed AI in a working business, not just used a chatbot. The AI Integration & Automation Lead connects AI tools and large language models (LLMs) to our existing business systems so that manual work disappears and the team gets better information faster.

You will find where time is being lost, design the fix, connect the systems involved through their APIs, and put AI to work inside those workflows, with the right checks so the results can be trusted. This role combines a strong technical education with real, hands-on experience integrating AI into business systems. You will work across the organization and its affiliated businesses and divisions, partnering with sales, purchasing, warehouse, finance and customer service in each.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Approximate share of time shown next to each area.

AI Integration and Automation: 45% of time

• Identify manual, repetitive processes across the organization and its affiliated businesses, and design AI-powered automations to replace them.
• Integrate LLMs into existing systems and workflows: order tagging and routing, purchase orders, invoicing, reconciliations, customer and account follow-ups, document and data extraction, email drafting and product content.
• Build AI features that help leadership run the business, such as report summaries, anomaly alerts and plain-language answers from company data.
• Use AI coding tools to build and maintain automations, reviewing all AI-generated code before it goes live.
• Put controls on AI output: validate figures against source data, require human approval for customer-facing or irreversible actions, and keep health or cessation claims out of product content.
• Protect customer and company data used with AI tools, and monitor AI usage costs to keep them within budget.
• Evaluate new AI tools and models and recommend what is worth adopting.

Systems Integration: 30% of time

• Build and maintain API integrations between the ecommerce platform, warehouse management system, shipping carriers and 3PLs, accounting, banking, email and analytics platforms.
• Keep data in sync between systems and flag mismatches in inventory, orders, payments and invoices.
• Set up webhooks, scheduled jobs and alerts so integrations run reliably, and fix issues when they break.
• Manage API credentials securely and document each integration.
• Support the systems of our other businesses and divisions, adapting integrations and automations to each one's tools and needs, and reusing what works across the group.

Reporting and Insights: 15% of time

• Deliver leadership dashboards for sales and margin by channel, cash, inventory and purchasing, and B2B account activity.
• Use AI to turn data into clear summaries and recommendations that managers can act on.

Collaboration and Training: 10% of time

• Meet with each business and department across the team to understand their work and prioritize automation by business value.
• Train team on new tools and write simple user guides.
• Report progress to leadership weekly: completed, in progress, risks and blockers.

Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, Data Science or a related field.
• 3+ years building software integrations, automations or internal business applications.
• Proven, hands-on experience integrating AI or LLMs into business systems or workflows, with at least one AI automation running in production that you can walk us through in detail.
• Daily, hands-on use of LLM APIs (such as OpenAI, Anthropic or Google): prompting, tool / function calling and structured output.
• Experience connecting business systems through APIs (REST, webhooks, OAuth).
• Working knowledge of Python or JavaScript, and SQL for pulling and checking data.
• Must be 21 years of age or older.

Preferred:

• API experience with a major ecommerce platform (such as Shopify, BigCommerce or WooCommerce), including B2B features.
• Warehouse management, shipping-software or 3PL integrations.
• Cloud accounting / ERP or CRM integrations.
• Workflow-automation platforms such as Zapier, Make or n8n.
• Experience in wholesale distribution, ecommerce or regulated products (vapor, tobacco, alcohol or CBD).

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

AI and LLMs:

• Connecting LLMs to company data and systems, including retrieval over internal documents and data.
• AI agents and multi-step automations that take actions in other systems.
• Choosing the right model for the job based on cost, speed and accuracy.
• Validating AI output and preventing made-up figures or answers.
• AI coding tools, and reviewing what they produce.

APIs and Integration:

• Authentication (OAuth 2.0, API keys), pagination, rate limits and retries.
• Webhooks, including duplicate and missed events.
• Keeping data consistent across systems.

Professional Abilities:

• Explains technical topics clearly to non-technical team members.
• Works independently and prioritizes by business impact.
• Careful with live production data and confidential financial and customer information.
• Manages several projects at once and meets deadlines.

Systems You Will Work With:

Ecommerce platform (B2C and B2B) · Warehouse management system · Shipping software, carriers and 3PLs · Cloud accounting · Banking and payment processors · Email and SMS marketing · Web analytics · Workspace sign-on and file storage · Major LLM providers.

Performance Measures:

• First 30-45 days: systems and integrations mapped across Lightfire and its affiliated businesses; top automation opportunities agreed with leadership; first AI automations live and saving measurable time; leadership dashboard in use.
• Ongoing: hours of manual work removed, accuracy of data and AI output, reliability of integrations, and adoption by team.

Work Environment:

• On-site office role with regular visits to the warehouse floor.
• Occasional after-hours support for critical system issues.

Benefits:

• Health, dental and vision insurance.
• 401(k)
• Paid time off and holidays.
• AI tools and equipment provided.
• Professional development budget.

Selection Process:

• Application review: resume plus examples of AI automations or integrations you have built (GitHub, portfolio, demo video or a written description).
• HR screen, 30 minutes.
• Technical interview: a detailed walkthrough of a real AI integration you built: what it connected, how it worked, what went wrong and how you fixed it.
• Paid Practical Assessment (if required): Complete a job-related exercise using sample order data from an API. Use an LLM to classify or summarize the data, then explain how you validated the AI-generated output for accuracy. Candidates may use the AI tools of their choice. The assessment scope, expected time commitment (approximately three hours), and compensation will be communicated in advance.
• Final interview with leadership: walk through your assessment and one AI mistake you caught.
• Reference checks, background check and age verification (21+), then offer.