AI Forward Deployed Engineer

Zip
San Francisco; Toronto; New York, San Francisco; Toronto; New York, California; Ontario; New York
On-siteCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Geared toward mid-level professionals with enterprise procurement or finance operations experience who can independently build AI solutions and manage client relationships.

Best fit for

  • Enterprise procurement or finance ops professionals who can build AI workflows
    — “3+ years working inside enterprise procurement, finance operations
  • Technical problem-solvers comfortable diagnosing workflow failures independently
    — “diagnose workflow failures without needing an engineer on call
  • Customer-facing builders who can expand contract value through solutions
    — “Surface the next problem worth solving before the customer can articulate it

Things to consider

  • On-site customer visits required for live testing and stakeholder sessions
    — “Represent Zip on-site at customer locations when required
  • Must manage parallel workstreams across multiple enterprise accounts
    — “manage parallel workstreams across a small portfolio of accounts

How to stand out

  • Showcase live examples of AI agents or automated workflows you built
    — “show something you built that is live and running
  • Demonstrate ability to earn trust with senior finance stakeholders
    — “earn credibility quickly with an AP Director, CPO, or CFO
  • Highlight end-to-end ownership of complex customer engagements
    — “owning complex customer engagements independently, from scoping through delivery
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · TeamLevel · Senior

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • Build and deploy AI agent solutions
  • Own the customer relationship and manage parallel workstreams
Typical background
Enterprise procurement experienceProcurement and finance operations knowledge

Skills & requirements

Required

AI Agent InfrastructureAppstudioProcurement And Finance Operations Knowledge

Preferred

Enterprise Procurement ExperienceProcurement And Finance Operations Knowledge

Stack & domain

Ai Agent InfrastructureAppstudioProcurementFinance OperationsProblem-solvingCommunicationEnterprise ProcurementFinanceLegalRisk Management

About the role

Original posting from Zip via Ashby

ABOUT ZIP

Zip is the AI platform for enterprise procurement — built for humans and agents working together. By orchestrating procurement across teams, tools, and suppliers with the help of AI agents, companies can secure the resources they need to innovate faster than ever before.

The world’s most influential enterprises trust Zip, including T-Mobile, OpenAI, AMD, Mars, Dollar Tree, and more. Together they’ve saved over $8 billion and processed over $500 billion in spend. Zip’s team includes product leaders from Apple, Airbnb, and Meta, as well as former procurement leaders from United Health, Sanofi, MGM Resorts, Discover, and NASA.

Backed by Adams Street, Alkeon, BOND, CRV, DST, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator, Zip has raised $371 million, most recently at a $2.2 billion valuation and has been recognized by Forbes Fintech 50, Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies, Inc. Best in Business, and LinkedIn Top Startups.

YOUR ROLE

Be at the forefront of how Zip transforms enterprise procurement through AI. As an AI Forward Deployed Engineer, you will embed directly inside our most strategic accounts, uncover the operational problems that are hardest to see from the outside, and build working solutions using Zip's agent infrastructure and AppStudio. You will own a small book of enterprise accounts end-to-end, with accountability not just for deploying AI but for expanding the scope of what we are solving inside each one.

The measure of success is whether the customer's highest-priority problems get solved, and whether that earns you access to the next ones. You will work where Zip's platform meets real enterprise complexity, across procurement, finance, legal, and risk workflows, and you will be expected to see what needs to exist before the customer can articulate it.

The right person for this role is mission-driven, moves fast, and is passionate about driving outcomes for customers. You have enough domain knowledge to earn trust quickly inside an enterprise, and enough technical fluency to build it yourself without waiting on someone else to do it.

YOU WILL

  • Embed with enterprise customers to understand their procurement and adjacent workflows at the process level: how work actually moves, where decisions break down, and where the highest-ROI problems sit.
  • Build and deploy AI agent solutions using Zip's AppStudio and AI infrastructure, configured to the customer's specific environment and data, not off-the-shelf.
  • Own the customer relationship and manage parallel workstreams across a small portfolio of accounts, keeping delivery on track and stakeholder trust high.
  • Surface the next problem worth solving before the customer can articulate it, with the commercial instinct to understand how that expands contract value.
  • Produce architecture documentation that captures what was built, why, and what it would take to generalize across other accounts.
  • Feed structured learnings back to product and engineering so the solutions you build make the platform more repeatable over time.
  • Represent Zip on-site at customer locations when required, running live testing and stakeholder sessions against real data and real workflows.

QUALIFICATIONS

  • 3+ years working inside enterprise procurement, finance operations, or a related function in an operating role: Finance Systems, Procurement, Finance, etc. You have owned a finance process or technical stream end-to-end, not just advised on one.
  • Direct experience building AI agents or automated workflows for your own work. Zip's AppStudio, Claude, N8N, Make, Zapier, or similar. You can show something you built that is live and running.
  • A track record of owning complex customer engagements independently, from scoping through delivery, with accountability for outcomes rather than just outputs.
  • Enough technical fluency to build integrations, read API documentation, and diagnose workflow failures without needing an engineer on call.
  • Enough procurement or finance domain knowledge to earn credibility quickly with an AP Director, CPO, or CFO. Formal credentials (CPP, CPSM, CPA, or equivalent) are a plus, not a requirement.

The salary range for this role is $130,000- $150,000 OTE. The salary for this position is determined based on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant experience, education, or particular skills and expertise.

PERKS & BENEFITS

  • 📈 Start-up equity
  • 🦷 Health, vision & dental coverage
  • 🍽️ Catered lunches & dinners for hybrid employees
  • 🚍 Commuter benefit for hybrid employees
  • 🚠 Team building events & happy hours
  • 🌴 Flexible PTO
  • 💻 Apple equipment plus home office budget

We're looking to hire Zipsters and that means hiring people who take ownership, communicate openly, have an underdog mindset, and are excited to increase the pace of innovation for every business in the world. We encourage all candidates to apply even if your experience doesn't exactly match up to our job description. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workspace where everyone (regardless of age, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and more) feels like they belong. We look forward to hearing from you!

Source: Zip careers (Ashby)

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