AI Engineer / Forward Deployed AI Engineer

Company: Aura Reception

Location: Hybrid

Employment Type: Full-time

Salary Range: $145,000 – $180,000 base salary, depending on experience

Company Description

Aura Reception builds AI voice receptionist and automation systems for clinics, service businesses, and growing companies. Our platform helps businesses handle inbound calls, appointment scheduling, lead intake, customer questions, reminders, follow-ups, and backend workflows through AI voice agents, SMS, calendar integrations, CRM systems, and automation pipelines.

We are focused on building practical AI systems that solve real operational problems for customers. Our work sits at the intersection of voice AI, workflow automation, applied LLMs, customer operations, and business process automation. We move quickly, work directly with customers, and build systems that need to be reliable in real-world environments.

Role Description

We are looking for an AI Engineer / Forward Deployed AI Engineer to help design, build, deploy, and improve AI-powered receptionist and automation workflows for real customers.

This role is a mix of software engineering, AI workflow development, customer-facing implementation, and systems problem-solving. You will work across backend services, LLM workflows, voice AI agents, integrations, databases, and automation tools to turn customer needs into working production systems.

You should be comfortable moving between technical implementation and customer context. Some days you may be building APIs, improving agent logic, or debugging workflow issues. Other days you may be working with a customer to understand their scheduling process, map out their call handling needs, or deploy a custom automation workflow.

This is a strong fit for someone who likes building fast, using AI tools effectively, working close to customers, and owning projects from idea to deployment.

Responsibilities

Build and deploy AI voice receptionist workflows for customer use cases such as scheduling, lead qualification, FAQs, reminders, routing, and follow-ups.
Design backend systems, APIs, and workflow automations that connect voice agents, calendars, CRMs, forms, SMS, databases, and third-party tools.
Work directly with customers to understand their operations and translate requirements into reliable technical workflows.
Develop LLM-powered workflows using prompt engineering, tool calling, retrieval, structured outputs, and guardrails.
Build internal tools, dashboards, and automation systems to support implementation, monitoring, and client operations.
Debug production issues across voice AI, API integrations, webhooks, databases, and automation flows.
Improve reliability, latency, error handling, observability, and testing for deployed AI systems.
Collaborate with sales, operations, and implementation teams to support demos, pilots, and customer launches.
Use AI coding and productivity tools to move faster while still maintaining high-quality engineering standards.
Own projects end-to-end from scoping and design to deployment, monitoring, and iteration.

Requirements

Strong experience with software engineering, backend development, or full-stack development.
Experience building with Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, Node.js, or similar modern development tools.
Experience working with APIs, webhooks, databases, authentication, and third-party integrations.
Familiarity with LLMs, AI agents, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, tool calling, structured outputs, or workflow automation.
Comfortable using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar tools to speed up development, research, debugging, and documentation.
Ability to work directly with customers, understand business workflows, and translate messy requirements into clean technical systems.
Strong debugging skills and comfort working across different layers of a system.
Ability to work in a fast-moving startup environment with shifting priorities and high ownership.
Clear communication skills and the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical users.
Comfortable taking ownership of projects without needing every step defined upfront.

Preferred Experience

Experience with voice AI, conversational AI, call automation, or AI agent workflows.
Experience with tools such as Twilio, ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, LangChain, LangGraph, n8n, Zapier, Make, or similar platforms.
Experience with cloud services such as GCP, AWS, Firebase, Supabase, or PostgreSQL.
Experience building customer-facing automation systems, internal tools, dashboards, or operational software.
Experience in a forward deployed engineering, solutions engineering, implementation engineering, or technical customer-facing role.
Experience with healthcare, clinics, scheduling workflows, CRM systems, or local service business operations is a plus.

Tech Stack

Our current and expected stack includes:

Languages: Python, TypeScript, JavaScript
Backend: Node.js, FastAPI, REST APIs, webhooks
AI / LLMs: OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, prompt engineering, tool calling, RAG, AI agents
Voice / Communication: Twilio, ElevenLabs, SMS, voice workflows
Automation: n8n, Zapier, Make, custom workflow orchestration
Databases: PostgreSQL, Firebase, Firestore, Supabase
Cloud / DevOps: GCP, AWS, Docker, serverless functions
Frontend / Internal Tools: React, Next.js, dashboards, admin panels
Integrations: Google Calendar, Outlook, CRMs, forms, payment tools, scheduling systems

What We Are Looking For

We are looking for someone who can operate like a builder, problem solver, and implementation partner. The ideal person is not only strong technically, but also comfortable working close to customers and turning real business problems into working AI systems.

You should be comfortable asking questions, moving quickly, using AI tools as part of your workflow, and taking ownership of production systems that customers rely on.

Compensation

Base salary range: $145,000 – $180,000, depending on experience, technical ability, and overall fit.