AI Forward Deployed Engineer

CoinDesk; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

CoinDesk is hiring an AI Engineer for Internal Tools & Automation in Hong Kong. You will partner with business teams to identify bottlenecks, build low-ops tools, and ship production AI systems, including RAG pipelines and internal agents. You’ll work across Success, Operations, Trading and Custody to reduce friction.

The role emphasizes shipping fast, prototyping with LLMs, and owning outcomes end-to-end. You’ll need to move quickly, coordinate with multiple teams, and document processes.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in a role shipping tools used by people
• Experience building AI tooling for production use
• Strong understanding of LLMs and practical workflows
• Ability to document processes and create SOPs
• Comfort coordinating with business partners to scope bottlenecks

Responsibilities

• Partner with business counterpart to scope operational bottlenecks and build tools
• Move autonomously across the organization to gather requirements and data access
• Ship quickly using appropriate tools (n8n, Make, Zapier, Lovable, or Python)
• Build and maintain production AI systems (RAG, agents, interfaces)
• Run workshops and training for non-technical teams
• Define metrics and report on impact of changes

Skills

LLM automation

Agent orchestration

Observability

Documentation

Stakeholder comms

Production systems

Workshop facilitation

Tools

n8n

Make

Zapier

Lovable

Python

Job description

CoinDesk is the most trusted media, events, indices and data company for the global crypto economy. Since 2013, CoinDesk Media has led the story of the future of money and investing, illuminating the transformation in society and culture that comes with it. Our award-winning team of journalists delivers news and unparalleled insights that bring transparency, comprehension and context. CoinDesk Events gathers the global crypto, blockchain and Web3 communities at annual events such as Consensus, the world’s largest and longest-running crypto festival. CoinDesk Indices offers expertise in digital asset indices, data and research to educate and empower investors. For more information on CoinDesk media and events, please visit http://coindesk.com [coindesk.com] and for breaking headlines, data and indices visit http://coindeskmarkets.com [coindeskmarkets.com]

In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. For more information on Bullish, please visit https://bullish.com. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence.

Reports To

Product Manager - Exchange Product

AI Engineer — Internal Tools & Automation

The AI Engineering team acts as an internal catalyst. We identify where the business is slow, build tools to fix it, and move on. Our work spans Customer Success, Exchange Operations, Trading, and Custody — wherever there's friction worth eliminating.

This isn't a research role. We ship fast, measure impact, and iterate. You'll spend more time prototyping with LLMs and building agentic workflows than writing infrastructure, but you'll own what you build all the way to production.

What You’ll Do

• Partner with a business counterpart to identify and scope operational bottlenecks, then build the tools to fix them
• Move autonomously across the organization: gather requirements, secure data access, and earn the trust of teams you're helping
• Ship quickly using whatever fits: n8n, Make, Zapier, Lovable, or custom Python. Right tool for the right job.
• Build and maintain production AI systems: RAG pipelines, conversational interfaces, workflow automation, internal agents
• Run workshops and training sessions to help non-technical teams actually use what you build
• Define metrics upfront, track them, and tell the story of what changed

What We’re Looking For

We care more about what you've shipped than where you worked. Show us:

• A portfolio of things you've built. Personal projects, side tools, public demos, anything you can point at. GitHub, a writeup, a Loom walkthrough, a live URL. All count.
• Evidence you move fast with LLMs. You've run multiple coding agents in parallel and know how to coordinate between them. You have a feel for how capable frontier models actually are, and you match model intelligence to task complexity rather than defaulting to the biggest one every time.
• Production instincts. You've dealt with the gap between "it works in the demo" and "it works at 3am when nobody's watching." Evals, error handling, observability. You've thought about this.
• A process-driven mindset. You document how things work before someone asks you to. Your SOPs and checklists aren't overhead — they're how you stay sharp and move fast without dropping things.
• You've always had ideas. Now you can ship them. AI coding agents removed the bottleneck that used to sit between your thinking and working software. You don't wait for an engineer to build what you've already figured out.
• Communication that closes the gap. You can translate what you built into terms that matter to the business partner who asked for it.
• Formal experience: 5+ years in a role where you shipped tools that people actually used.

Nice to Haves

• Experience with vector databases (Qdrant, Pinecone, pgvector)
• Familiarity with SQL and relational databases so you can pull your own data
• Docker / containerization basics
• Any exposure to blockchain or trading concepts (we'll teach you what you need)

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

In an effort to attract, retain, develop and promote the most qualified individuals, CoinDesk is committed to treating all applicants and employees in a nondiscriminatory manner with respect to the terms and conditions of employment, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status/service, physical or mental disability, or any other classification protected by applicable law. This mandate governs all aspects of employment, including recruitment, selection, promotion, training, education, social and recreation programs, compensation, discipline, termination and access to benefits.

ACCOMMODATION

CoinDesk is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the application process, please send an e‑mail to [e-mail] and let us know the nature of your request.