Creative Technologist (contract)

Instrument is a digitally native design and technology company built to help brands unlock their full potential. Since 2005, our team of makers, thinkers, and storytellers has partnered with leading brands like Google, Nike, Uber, ŌURA, and Eventbrite to craft digital experiences that create impact and drive results. Unlike traditional agencies, we don’t just design—we build. Our work lives at the intersection of taste and technology, powered by curiosity, thoughtful curation, and a commitment to delivering the most fitting solution for every brief. We bring this to life across three core offerings: Brand, Marketing, and Product. As a member of our freelance network, you’ll collaborate with our teams to bring bold ideas to life—whether launching new brands, building digital products, or shaping experiences that move people. We welcome collaborators from all backgrounds and experiences who share our curiosity, creativity, and care for craft. We believe great work comes from diverse perspectives and shared purpose. If you’re passionate about learning, experimenting, and making work that matters, we’d love to hear from you. The Role We’re looking for an embedded, hands-on Creative Technologist to rapidly turn emerging AI capabilities into compelling, functional experiences. Working closely with a multidisciplinary creative team, you’ll experiment with new AI model releases and capabilities, quickly moving from “what could we do with this?” to working prototypes and demos people actually want to engage with. You’ll use AI-assisted development and rapid prototyping to build experiences that demonstrate what’s possible in ways that are technically credible, creatively interesting, and designed to capture attention. This is a highly hands-on role for someone who thrives in experimentation. You’re comfortable with ambiguity, curious about what’s next, and able to independently take an idea from early exploration through something polished enough to put in front of an audience. Contract: ASAP – February 26, 2027 Commitment: 40 hours/week What You'll Do Rapidly concept, prototype, and ship AI-powered demos tied to emerging models, capabilities, and use casesStay close to developments in generative AI, quickly exploring new models, APIs, tools, and capabilities and identifying compelling ways to bring them to lifeUse AI-assisted development, “vibe coding,” and rapid experimentation to move quickly from idea to working experienceBuild functional prototypes, lightweight apps, interactive experiences, and developer-facing demos designed to make new AI capabilities tangible and engagingExplore emerging AI technologies hands-on and identify creative, unexpected ways to demonstrate their potentialTranslate experiments into compelling outputs across formats, including working code, screen recordings, short-form social content, technical tutorials, and open-source repositoriesPartner closely with creative, design, engineering, and production teams to shape ideas while bringing a strong technical point of viewIterate quickly based on creative and technical feedback, balancing speed with a strong bar for craft and execution What You Bring Strong hands-on experience in creative technology, prototyping, creative development, or a similar technical disciplineA portfolio demonstrating functional prototypes, interactive experiences, experiments, or other technically driven creative workMeaningful hands-on experience building with Gemini and Google’s AI developer ecosystem, with a strong understanding of its models, APIs, tools, and capabilitiesStrong familiarity with generative AI, LLMs, multimodal models, APIs, and AI-assisted development workflowsAn active curiosity about the evolving AI landscape, paired with demonstrated depth in the Gemini ecosystemStrong coding and prototyping skills using modern front-end frameworks and development toolsComfort experimenting with newly released models and capabilities and figuring things out without an established playbookStrong creative instincts and an understanding of what makes a technical demo surprising, useful, entertaining, or worth sharingThe ability to work independently and move quickly from an ambiguous idea to a functional prototype with minimal hand-holdingStrong communication skills and the ability to make technical ideas accessible and exciting to both developer and broader consumer audiencesExperience creating developer-facing content, social-first creative, technical tutorials, or open-source projects is a plus What We Offer: The expected contract pay range: $74-109 per hour. Contract compensation is determined by location, experience, and skillset. We have three regional pay ranges that are adjusted for cost of living (US1 +15%, US2 +7.5%, US3 Base), *learn more about our pay philosophy and cost of living adjustments. Benefits may be available in accordance with applicable law and company policy, including eligibility based on hours worked and duration of assignment. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.