Forward-Deployed AI Engineer for Civic Tech

Social Solutions Global; United States; Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 145,000; Full time

Job summary

Bonterra is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with campaigns, nonprofits, and partners across the Democratic and Progressive ecosystem. You will bridge NGP VAN platforms with real-world workflows, design agentic skills, and deploy them to improve operations and impact.

You will lead client engagements, run discovery sessions, and help grow the NGP VAN Interface and API. This is a client-facing technical role requiring strong engineering, political fluency, and travel as needed.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of professional software engineering or product management.
• Experience building with LLM APIs, agentic frameworks, and MCP tooling.
• Proficiency in back-end or full-stack development (Python, Node.js, or .NET).
• Strong REST API fluency, consuming and designing endpoints.
• Client-facing experience: run discovery sessions and manage stakeholders.
• Ability to work autonomously in embedded/forward-deployed roles with limited supervision.
• Familiarity with Democratic campaigns, progressive nonprofits, and political tech.
• Willingness to travel on-site to meet client organizations.

Responsibilities

• Embed on-site or remotely with client organizations to map workflows.
• Lead workflow discovery sessions with stakeholders to prioritize tasks.
• Design and build agentic skills atop NGP VAN and interface.
• Manage the full skill delivery lifecycle from design to deployment.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor, communicating AI concepts clearly.
• Contribute features to expand NGP VAN Interface and APIs.
• Document designs and patterns to enable scale.

Skills

3–5 years experience

LLM APIs

Back-end/full-stack

REST APIs

Client-facing

Autonomous work

Democratic campaigns knowledge

Willingness to travel

Tools

NGP VAN

Claude

Job description

Bonterra is seeking a Forward Deployed Engineer to embed with campaigns, nonprofits, and partners across the Democratic and Progressive ecosystem. You will bridge NGP VAN platforms with real-world workflows, design agentic skills, and deploy them to improve operations and impact.

You will lead client engagements, run discovery sessions, and help grow the NGP VAN Interface and API. This is a client-facing technical role requiring strong engineering, political fluency, and travel as needed.