Automation Lead, AI and Agents
PathwaysX
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
ADS, headquartered in Virginia Beach, is seeking an Automation Lead to drive AI adoption and automation across the organization. You will partner with the Director of Software Development to map processes, prioritize automation opportunities, and design LLM-based agents and workflows integrated with Salesforce and Oracle ERP.
This is an on-site role focused on modernizing technology and governance in a federal contractor environment.
Qualifications
- Structured interviews with business stakeholders across departments.
- Translate processes into documented workflows and pain points.
- Identify automatable processes vs. noise.
- Evaluate automation opportunities with value, feasibility, and risk.
- Hands-on building of LLM-based agents for real use cases.
- Integrate automation with Salesforce and Oracle ERP.
- Define governance guardrails for data and access control.
Responsibilities
- Interview stakeholders to map processes and identify automation opportunities.
- Prioritize opportunities and agree on AI adoption road map with leadership.
- Design and build LLM-based agents, workflows, and system integrations.
- Establish guardrails for data, access control, evaluation, and human review.
- Measure business impact and report outcomes of automations.
- Define standards and patterns for the automation program and future team members.
Skills
Tools
Job description
ADS is a leading US supplier to defense and government customers, headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with large-scale warehouse and distribution operations. The company is growing rapidly and investing in modernizing its technology.As the right hand of the Director of Software Development, you will lead the adoption of AI and automation across ADS, working through a multi-year pipeline of opportunities for AI, LLM agents and workflow automation, where each project opens the door to the next. You will be the company's dedicated automation expert and work independently in the initial phase. Phase 1 focuses on discovery and planning, defining priorities and the AI adoption roadmap with leadership; Phase 2 focuses on delivery.
$5,000 annual learning budget for courses, certifications, and one conference including travel, plus about 4 hours a month of paid time to use it. Intended to keep the Automation Lead current on production LLM agents, evaluation and guardrails, and defense-relevant practice such as CMMC awareness and Azure Government or AWS GovCloud. Required client security or program training is funded by the client, not taken from this budget.
Not Applicable
$600 annual wellness stipend for gym or fitness, mental health support, and other wellness expenses the person chooses. This is separate from health insurance and from the learning budget.
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
- 01 Interview stakeholders and business owners across sales, contracts, procurement, finance, logistics and customer service to map processes and identify automation opportunities.
- 02 Prioritize opportunities and agree on the AI adoption roadmap with leadership.
- 03 Design and build solutions: LLM-based assistants and agents, document processing (solicitations, quotes, contracts, invoices), workflow automation, and integrations with
- 04 Salesforce, the self-hosted Oracle ERP and other systems.
- 05 Establish guardrails for controlled and export-controlled data, access control, evaluation, monitoring and human review.
- 06 Measure and report the business impact of each automation.
- 07 Define the standards and patterns the program builds on, including for 1–2 future team members.
Must have
- Ability to run structured interviews with non-technical business stakeholders across multiple departments
- Capability to translate operational processes into clear, documented workflows and pain points
- Skill in identifying which processes are genuinely automatable versus noise
Nice to have
- Experience conducting discovery work in a new or unfamiliar organization
- Prior work mapping cross-functional business processes for technology initiatives
Must have
- Ability to evaluate and rank automation opportunities by value, feasibility and risk
- Experience negotiating and agreeing priorities directly with senior leadership
- Capacity to sequence a multi-phase program where early wins enable later initiatives
- Proven, hands-on experience delivering AI-powered business automation
Nice to have
- Track record of building technology roadmaps or business cases presented to executives
- Comfort operating with ambiguity before a defined project plan exists
Must have
- Demonstrated experience building LLM-based agents or assistants for real business use cases
- Practical skill integrating automation with CRM/ERP systems such as Salesforce and self-hosted Oracle ERP
- 7+ years in software engineering or automation, including 2+ years building production LLM applications (retrieval, tool use, agents) on OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI or AWS Bedrock.
- Strong Python or TypeScript skills, with API and systems integration experience.
- Experience with a workflow or RPA platform (Power Automate, UiPath, n8n or similar).
Nice to have
- Experience building workflow automation tools connecting multiple enterprise systems
- Familiarity with self-hosted or on-premise ERP integration challenges
- Ability to work independently as the sole technical builder in early phases
Must have
- Understanding of data sensitivity and export-control compliance requirements (e.g., ITAR-type constraints) in an AI context
- Ability to design access control and human-in-the-loop review mechanisms for AI agents
- Capability to implement evaluation and monitoring frameworks for AI/automation reliability
Nice to have
- Experience building responsible AI or risk-mitigation practices in a regulated or government-adjacent environment
- Knowledge of audit trails and oversight mechanisms for autonomous systems
Must have
- Ability to define and track measurable business outcomes (time saved, cost reduced, errors avoided) per automation
- Experience creating technical standards, templates or patterns that others can follow
- Capability to prepare the program for scaling to 1-2 additional team members
Nice to have
- Experience reporting ROI or impact metrics to non-technical leadership
- Prior creation of documentation or playbooks enabling team scaling
You will sit with the Director of Software Development as their right hand for AI and automation. In the first phase you are the company's dedicated automation expert and will work independently, partnering with leaders and business owners across sales, contracts, procurement, finance, logistics, and customer service. Over time you will help set the standards and patterns for one or two future teammates. This is an on-site role in Virginia Beach, on a dedicated team being built to support ADS's technology modernization.
You will work across the business, not inside a single product squad. Success depends on interviewing stakeholders, turning loosely defined needs into scoped projects, and building solutions that have to work with Salesforce, the self-hosted Oracle ERP, and other systems. Ownership is shared with the Director of Software Development and with the business owners whose processes you are automating.
You will be expected to communicate clearly, concisely, and in terms of outcomes. A core part of the job is agreeing the AI adoption roadmap with leadership, then measuring and reporting the business impact of each automation. In a federal contractor environment, accuracy matters: keep people informed, and do not hide risk.
Priorities are set with leadership, informed by what you learn from stakeholders and by the business impact of each opportunity. You will turn loosely defined needs into a clear roadmap, then decide what to build first. Decisions also have to respect guardrails for controlled and export-controlled data, access control, evaluation, monitoring, and human review.
The first phase is discovery and planning in a company that is growing and modernizing its technology. Needs will often start loose, and you will be expected to bring structure: map processes, prioritize, and agree a roadmap. The environment rewards people who can adapt, switch context to help a stakeholder, and keep moving without waiting for a perfectly defined brief.
You will define the standards and patterns the program builds on, including for the next people who join. That means documenting decisions, architecture, and operating practices clearly enough that others can follow them. Guardrails, evaluation, monitoring, and impact reporting should be written down, especially given ADS's quality and compliance environment.
You will be trusted to run with the work, not wait to be told what to do. People here are expected to follow through on commitments, own mistakes, and meet or beat deadlines. The culture is not one of micromanagement: you make your own success, take ownership of problems, and see them through for the customer. In this role, that means you own the AI adoption roadmap and delivery, then set the standards the next one or two people will follow.
Feedback is direct and tied to the mission. People are expected to speak up when something runs counter to the goal, hold each other to commitments, and own mistakes early. You should expect regular conversations with your manager about the work and your growth, and you should surface issues as soon as you see them.
Honesty and open communication are the standard, even when that is uncomfortable or costs time. If something goes wrong, you own it and say so clearly. This is a federal contractor environment with high quality and compliance expectations, so accuracy matters: you communicate clearly, keep stakeholders informed, and do not hide risk.
The purpose of the company is serving those who serve. Customers come first, and the job is to find the real problem and help solve it, even if that means dropping what you were doing. The best relationships here feel like teammates, not vendors. In this role, your end customer is the mission and the warfighter, and your day-to-day customers are colleagues across sales, contracts, procurement, finance, logistics, and customer service.
You are expected to challenge the status quo and find better ways to solve problems, both for customers and in how the work gets done. That means digging beneath the obvious, not settling for the first answer. In this role, innovation has to be practical and deliverable, with the right guardrails for controlled and export-controlled data, not novelty for its own sake.
The company invests in professional development and expects you to keep growing. There is support for building industry knowledge, deepening your craft, and stretching into new skills, including the chance to learn by teaching others what you have mastered. In this role, staying current on production AI and automation is part of the job, and you will also define the patterns a small future team can learn from.
The lead has conducted initial interviews with key stakeholders across sales, contracts, procurement, finance, logistics and customer service, producing early process maps and a shortlist of automation opportunities while establishing credibility with the Director of Software Development.
A prioritized AI adoption roadmap is agreed with leadership, initial guardrails for controlled/export-controlled data and access control are drafted, and the first pilot solution (such as an LLM agent or document processing workflow integrated with Salesforce or Oracle ERP) is underway or delivered.
Over the multi-year engagement, the lead has delivered a pipeline of successful AI agents, document automation, and workflow integrations with measurable business impact, built robust governance guardrails, and established standards and patterns that allow the automation program to scale with additional team members.
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