Forward Deployed Engineer – Applied AI

wonderschool; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Wonderschool is seeking an embedded AI engineer to combine product development with customer‑facing problem solving. You will work with users and teams to identify high‑impact challenges, ship production code, and iterate on solutions that improve efficiency, conversions, retention, and revenue.

You will spend about half your time writing production code in Python/JavaScript, building AI-enabled features, and automating workflows for onboarding, proposals, and reporting.

Qualifications

• Evidence of independently building a product, starting a venture, gaining users, or generating revenue.
• Ability to ship production code independently using Python, JavaScript, or a similar language.
• Experience applying AI or large language models and using AI-assisted developer tools.
• Comfort speaking with users and translating their needs into practical solutions.
• Business judgment, including experience prioritizing work by return on investment; a background in consulting, P&L ownership, or business education is relevant.
• Ability to work with ambiguity, take ownership, and make progress with limited direction.

Responsibilities

• Speak regularly with customers and internal teams to uncover high-impact problems and turn feedback into product decisions.
• Build, test, deploy, and monitor production software, delivering frequent improvements across the customer experience.
• Develop AI-enabled tools and product features that reduce manual work and improve experiences for providers, families, and public-sector partners.
• Automate workflows such as onboarding, proposal creation, and reporting.
• Use AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering speed and quality.
• Prioritize work by business impact, collaborate across teams, and follow projects through adoption and iteration.

Skills

Python

JavaScript

AI/ML

Customer discovery

Product development

Tools

AI-assisted tools

Job description

Role overview

This role combines applied AI engineering, product development, and customer‑facing problem solving. You will work with users and internal teams to find operational or product challenges, build solutions, and track whether they improve outcomes such as efficiency, conversion, retention, or revenue. The work is hands‑on and iterative, with production coding expected to take about half your time.

Responsibilities

• Speak regularly with customers and internal teams to uncover high‑impact problems and turn feedback into product decisions.
• Build, test, deploy, and monitor production software, delivering frequent improvements across the customer experience.
• Develop AI‑enabled tools and product features that reduce manual work and improve experiences for providers, families, and public‑sector partners.
• Automate workflows such as onboarding, proposal creation, and reporting.
• Use AI‑assisted development tools to improve engineering speed and quality.
• Prioritize work by business impact, collaborate across teams, and follow projects through adoption and iteration.

Requirements

• Evidence of independently building a product, starting a venture, gaining users, or generating revenue.
• Ability to ship production code independently using Python, JavaScript, or a similar language.
• Experience applying AI or large language models and using AI‑assisted developer tools.
• Comfort speaking with users and translating their needs into practical solutions.
• Business judgment, including experience prioritizing work by return on investment; a background in consulting, P&L ownership, or business education is relevant.
• Ability to work with ambiguity, take ownership, and make progress with limited direction.

Benefits and work setup

• In‑person work 5–6 days per week, with regular client travel.
• Small, fast‑moving team with substantial ownership and frequent opportunities to put work in front of users.
• Work is connected to early education and childcare, with stated aims to benefit families, providers, and communities.