Artificial Intelligence Engineer

The Addison Group; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

The Addison Group is seeking a hands-on Forward Deployed AI Engineer to work directly with business users and rapidly turn operational needs into AI-powered applications. You will embed with Operations, Engineering, Finance, HR, and other groups to observe workflows, identify inefficiencies, and deliver practical AI solutions.

Lead discovery conversations, translate needs into prototypes, and deliver production-ready apps using Python and/or C#/.NET with AI-assisted tools.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering background with Python and/or C#/.NET.
• Experience delivering AI-powered applications and internal tools.
• Proficient with AI development tools to accelerate prototyping and delivery.
• Ability to build across backend, APIs, databases, and front-end components.
• Familiar with LLMs, retrieval augmented generation, agents, and tool calling.
• Cloud experience with Azure preferred; AWS/GCP also acceptable.
• Ability to translate ambiguous business needs into functional solutions.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management.
• Willingness to be onsite five days per week with cross-team embedding.

Responsibilities

• Embed with business teams to observe workflows and identify opportunities for AI or automation.
• Lead discovery conversations with end users to translate needs into technical requirements.
• Convert loosely defined business problems into prototypes and production-ready applications.
• Rapidly build and iterate using Python, C#/.NET, AI-assisted development tools, or a mix of code.
• Develop AI-enabled applications, copilots, agents, and workflow automations.
• Demonstrate early versions to users, gather feedback, and improve the solution.
• Own solutions from discovery through deployment and adoption.

Skills

Python

C#/.NET

AI prototyping

Full-stack

LLMs patterns

Azure/AWS/GCP

Stakeholder comms

Adaptability

Onsite 5 days

Tools

Azure

AWS

GCP

APIs

Databases

Job description

We are seeking a hands‑on Forward Deployed AI Engineer to work directly with business users and rapidly turn operational needs into working AI‑powered applications. This person will not spend all day developing from a predefined backlog. They may sit alongside employees in Operations, Engineering, Finance, HR, or other business groups; observe how work is performed; identify inefficiencies

The ideal candidate combines technical curiosity with strong business instincts. They understand the fundamentals of software development in Python and/or .NET/C#, but they may also use AI coding tools extensively to develop faster. Success will be measured by their ability to understand users, build practical solutions efficiently, iterate based on feedback, and deliver measurable business value.

Responsibilities

• Embed with business teams to observe workflows, uncover pain points, and identify opportunities for AI or automation.
• Lead discovery conversations with end users who may not know how to translate their needs into technical requirements.
• Convert loosely defined business problems into prototypes and production-ready applications.
• Rapidly build and iterate using Python, C#/.NET, AI-assisted development tools, or a combination of traditional and AI-generated code.
• Develop AI-enabled applications, copilots, agents, search tools, workflow automations, and full-stack business solutions.
• Demonstrate early versions to users, gather feedback, and continuously improve the solution.
• Build conversational AI applications that interpret natural-language requests and route them to the appropriate specialized agent, workflow, tool, or data source.
• Design multi-agent solutions in which agents have distinct responsibilities, such as request classification, tool selection, data retrieval, analysis, and response generation.
• Integrate AI applications with multiple enterprise systems and large structured or unstructured datasets, combining information into grounded, context‑specific responses.
• Implement deterministic business rules, source citations, guardrails, human approval points, and fallback logic around AI‑generated outputs.
• Personally develop the APIs, orchestration logic, data integrations, backend services, and user‑facing components required to deliver complete solutions.
• Determine when a problem requires AI and when a simpler application, integration, or automation would be more effective.
• Connect AI solutions with enterprise data sources, APIs, databases, documents, and existing business systems.
• Explain technical concepts, limitations, risks, and tradeoffs in language business users can understand.
• Validate AI outputs for accuracy, reliability, security, and alignment with business rules.
• Own solutions from initial discovery through deployment, adoption, and ongoing improvement.
• Operate effectively in a fast‑moving environment where priorities may shift as new executive initiatives arise.

Required Qualifications

• Strong foundation in software engineering using Python and/or C#/.NET.
• Experience building working applications, internal tools, automations, or AI‑powered solutions.
• Experience using modern AI development or coding tools to accelerate prototyping and delivery.
• Ability to work across the stack, including backend services, APIs, databases, integrations, and user‑facing applications.
• Practical understanding of LLMs and AI application patterns such as:
• Retrieval‑augmented generation
• AI agents and tool calling
• Semantic or vector search
• Chatbots and copilots
• AI output evaluation and validation
• Cloud development experience in Azure, AWS, or GCP; Azure is preferred.
• Ability to work directly with nontechnical users and translate ambiguous needs into functional solutions.
• Strong communication, listening, presentation, and relationship‑building skills.
• Demonstrated adaptability, ownership, curiosity, and comfort working without perfectly defined requirements.
• Ability to work onsite five days per week and spend time embedded with different business groups.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in a forward deployed, solutions engineering, field engineering, technical consulting, innovation, or rapid‑prototyping capacity.
• Oil and gas, midstream, pipeline, industrial, manufacturing, or other asset‑intensive industry experience.
• Familiarity with the workflows of Operations, Engineering, Commercial, Finance, HR, Compliance, or Field Services teams.
• Experience deploying AI applications within a secure enterprise environment.
• Experience with Azure services such as:
• Service Bus
• API Management
• Experience with SQL Server, SharePoint, Databricks, Blazor, ASP.NET Core, Semantic Kernel, Copilot Studio, or agent frameworks.
• Experience connecting AI applications to enterprise documents and structured or unstructured data.
• AI certifications, side projects, hackathon work, or other evidence of continuous experimentation