AI Innovation Engineer

Role Description

As AI Innovation Engineer at 829, you'll work across the organization — partnering with VPs, directors, sales leadership, and subject matter experts — to drive operational excellence through AI-native tools and workflows. Your work directly impacts the team's ability to deliver cutting-edge services to clients, building technology with real impact internally and externally.

This is not a traditional AI strategy role. You'll write Python, build agentic workflows, ship MCP integrations, and use coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) as daily workflow. We're hiring a builder/coach who ships production AI work and earns adoption from subject matter experts. We are not hiring a strategist who delegates implementation, an AI evangelist without an operating record, or a researcher whose work doesn't practically reach the operating teams that need it.

This is a foundational role reporting directly to the President/COO. You'll have autonomy on execution, ownership of 829's AI stack and skill library, and workflow architecture. You must be comfortable being scrappy, resourceful, and hands-on, while also operating cross-functionally to influence the broader organization.

What Success Looks Like

• 6 Months:
  • You’ve established a draft playbook around agentic workflow development inclusive of testing, implementation and adoption.
  • You’ve successfully crafted 3 - 5 workflows that have met adoption criteria.
  • You are able to quantify the success of 1 - 2 workflows through quantitative and qualitative data.
  • You have crafted a system to catalogue workflows, skills, and AI tools that enables shorter time-to-value and reduces sprawl.
  • Your peers, colleagues and 829’s Leadership Team regularly seek your counsel in relation to AI Service Enablement.
• 12 Months:
  • You have a pressure-tested playbook that details the agentic workflow implementation process and ongoing management.
  • You have established a framework for evaluating the performance of workflows.
  • You have integrated multiple workflows into a custom frontend in coordination with 829’s Head of Apollo and Engineering Resources.
  • You have supported the growth of the innovation function as a center of excellence and/or an extension of 829’s Data Platform, Apollo.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Workflow & Agentic Engineering (60%):
  • Architect and build proprietary AI agents and automation workflows using company-specific data to drive defensible competitive advantage.
• Playbook:
  • Develop and manage a playbook that includes discovery, pilot, improvement, implementation, adoption and measurement phases to execute work.
• Pilots & Proof of Concept:
  • Lead pilots across multiple disciplines to test approaches and technology, using results to inform production workflows and gain buy-in.
• Integrations & Data Pipelines:
  • Develop and maintain integrations between AI tools and core business systems and advertising platforms, including API builds, validation frameworks, and data pipelines.
• SME Collaboration:
  • Collaborate closely with subject matter experts to ensure solutions and workflows deliver value, enable team members to produce their best work, are usable, and access that appropriate data.
• Leadership Collaboration:
  • Collaborate with senior leaders to ensure that workflows accomplish desired strategic and quality objectives.
• Adoption & Enablement:
  • Ensure that workflows and systems are consistently improved and adopted through systems and cadences that check outputs, measure progress towards goals, and revisit training and adoption mechanisms.
• AI Stack Curation / Governance / Documentation (15%):
  • Own the substrate of 829’s AI Innovation Initiatives.
• AI Stack Documentation:
  • Build and maintain 829's AI stack — tool inventory, vendor strategy, build-vs-buy posture, integration map, and shared-context architecture.
• Skill Library:
  • Develop reusable patterns, agentic workflows, and MCP integrations that provide strategic value and compound across workflows.
• Build vs. Buy:
  • Consult on agency decisions to build workflows and tools vs. buy point solutions to achieve objectives.
• General Enablement & Service-Model Translation (25%):
  • Guide and advise a technically competent team of marketing professionals to achieve shared objectives.
• Internal Enablement:
  • Run lightweight internal training, Office Hours, and troubleshooting clinics to upskill team members on AI-augmented work.
• Service-Model Translation:
  • Advise/consult on revised service-model artifacts: scope-of-work content, pricing implications, policies, and marketing collateral.
• Compliance & AI Policy:
  • Advise and actively contribute to AI policies designed to encourage and enable use, establish SOPs, and mitigate risk to clients, staff, and the business.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional experience with at least 2 years of exposure in the marketing/agency space.
• Engineering foundation strong enough to evaluate tools, build agentic workflows, ship MCP integrations, and use coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) as daily workflow.
• Working knowledge of security and performance best practices in traditional software and agentic environments.
• Hands-on fluency with Python and at least one of TypeScript, SQL, or relevant scripting environments.
• Systems thinking: ability to map a business workflow end-to-end and identify where AI creates leverage.
• Comfort with ambiguity; you diagnose problems, propose solutions, and move without being told exactly what to build.
• Demonstrated track record of shipping production AI work that earned adoption — used, not demoed-and-shelved.
• Strong written and verbal communication; can explain technical architecture to a non-technical executive and translate strategic intent into a shipped workflow.
• Demonstrated success in influence-without-authority scenarios in which your work has driven outcomes.

Requirements

• Experience with React/Node and custom front-end applications.
• Understanding of common paid, earned and owned media tools and systems.
• Familiarity with data-warehouse infrastructure (BigQuery, DBT, DLT & GCP).
• Public track record of shipped AI work - open-source contributions, technical writing, or production case studies.

Benefits

• Remote Workplace: Option to work at our office in Boston or remotely in several states.
• Paid Time Off: Generous paid vacation benefits, 12 Company Holidays, and Summer Fridays.
• 401K + Match: 401K plan with 4% Safe Harbor employer match after one year of employment.
• Life Insurance Benefit: No-cost coverage for your family.
• Short Term Disability Benefit: Coverage for illness or injury that keeps you out of work.
• Healthcare: Competitive healthcare plans with significant employer coverage.
• Commuter Benefits: Pre-tax funds towards your commute.
• Continuing Education: Access to webinars, learning platforms, and funding for conferences.