Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations

About the role

We're looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer who can take a real business problem, understand why it matters, and build the system that solves it. You'll own initiatives end to end, partner closely with operations, data, and product, and explore net-new product POCs and build internal tooling, automations and AI agents / agentic workflows that help the whole company move faster. This is an internal-facing role. Your customers are our own Ops, Product, Customer Success and Sales teams. Think of it as playing forward-deployed engineer for Alternative Payments itself: embedded with the teams that need you, understanding their real problems, and building the systems that solve them.

Responsibilities

• Build internal AI data infrastructure that consolidates what we know about our business and makes it usable across teams.
• Put AI at the center of how you work, leveraging it in daily workflows as well as for team enablement.
• Build internal versions of Sales, CS, and Marketing tools tailored to our exact workflows instead of adapting to third-party SaaS.
• Develop and maintain the dashboards that run the business: Ops dashboard, Finance dashboard, and Super Admin dashboard, plus the automations behind them.
• Own the work that starts as a prototype and evolves into a real system: internal applications, automations, product integrations, features for new verticals, and agentic workflows hardened into deterministic ones.
• Create net-new product POCs, working directly with the Product Engineering team on early-stage ideas and translating business context into technical decisions.
• Establish guardrails on AI-assisted development by reviewing BizOps team’s production code (architecture, infrastructure decisions, PRs) to ensure safety, reliability, and minimal tech debt.
• Design and build systems with a focus on reliability, performance, and maintainability—production-grade from day one.
• Support non-technical subject matter experts in deploying product to our production codebase, building systems from scratch, and refining coding harnesses for usability.
• Plug into the engineering team through code review, architecture feedback, and shared standards to ensure production-grade output.

Requirements

• Deep architectural knowledge to assess whether a system is built right, not just whether it works.
• Platform/infrastructure fluency, understanding Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, and data pipelines.
• Strong full-stack software engineering ability, with experience shipping production code independently and owning systems end-to-end.
• An AI-native operating bias, integrating multiple models, custom agents, and specialized contexts into your workflow by default.
• Proficiency in, or ability to quickly ramp on, our stack: TypeScript, Next.js, Python (internal tooling), and Go or Rust, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, and AWS (core platform).
• Experience designing and evolving scalable systems, with a clear point of view on tradeoffs for stakeholders and end-users.
• Ability to take a project from end-to-end, including technical execution, stakeholder communication, and delivery accountability.
• Cross-functional instincts, comfortable moving between Operations, Product, and Data teams.
• A bias toward business impact, solving real operational problems and understanding how the business runs and makes money.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, with the judgment to work autonomously, make decisions, and take accountability for outcomes.
• Pragmatism and speed, knowing when to build fast and scrappy versus bulletproof.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience at a fintech or payments company, or working closely with money movement.
• Experience contributing to billing, payments, or quote-to-cash systems.
• Experience building internal tools, admin panels, or business-facing dashboards.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures (e.g., RabbitMQ).
• Background at a fast-scaling startup, owning systems end-to-end close to the business.

Benefits

• Competitive salary tailored to your experience, skills, and expertise. The base compensation range for this role is $200,000 - $250,000, plus equity.
• Equity opportunities to share in our growth and success.
• Unlimited PTO and flexibility when you need it most.
• Yearly learning & development stipend to help you grow and do your best work.

Why choose Alternative Payments?

• Own your impact: Build the internal systems the whole company runs on and see your work used across the business every day.
• Collaborate: Work with a diverse, innovative team where every voice is heard and great ideas come from anywhere.
• Grow with us: Your career journey is a priority. We support internal growth and give you the space to shape your path.
• Thrive in a supportive culture: As a scaling startup, initiative is key. We believe in shared learning, open communication, and building each other up.

Want to see what we're actually building? Watch our short video for a glimpse of our product, our people, and the problems we're solving.

Our values

• Transparency & Honesty: We communicate openly and truthfully with partners, investors, and each other.
• Resourcefulness & AI: We stay scrappy, find creative solutions, and make progress even when the path isn’t obvious.
• Partnership: We win and lose together, collaborating to tackle big challenges and reach shared goals.
• Revolutionary & Boldness: We challenge conventions, take calculated risks, and build better solutions.
• Accountability: We take ownership of our decisions and results, knowing our work impacts our partners, team, and business.