Forward Deployed Engineer, Operations

Job description

Alternative Payments is building the financial operating system for SMBs, consolidating the disconnected tech stack that holds service-based businesses back. Starting with MSPs, we've spent five years perfecting accounts receivable, and we're now expanding into accounts payable, AI-powered analytics, and beyond. We're at an inflection point: closing the loop on money movement and laying the foundation for a platform that will reshape how service businesses operate financially. We're growing fast, thinking big, and building a global team that wants to be part of something that lasts. We believe the best solutions come from diverse perspectives, deep collaboration, and a shared obsession with customer impact. If you're energized by real problems, real customers, and real impact, we want to hear from you! ## **Why should you apply for this 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. **Examples of what’s you’ll own:** - 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 wor**k. We're an AI-forward team and expect you to build with it by default, leveraging it in your daily workflows as well as for team enablement, not just basic usage. - Building products we'd otherwise buy. We're replicating internal versions of Sales, CS, Marketing tools, built to fit exactly how we operate instead of bending our workflows to someone else's SaaS. - The **dashboards that run the business**. Our Ops dashboard, Finance dashboard, and the Super Admin dashboard, plus the automations behind them. This means understanding why something matters to the business, not just what needs to be built. - Own the work that starts as a prototype and has to become a real system: internal applications and automations, product integrations, features for new verticals, and agentic workflows hardened into deterministic ones. - Net-new product POCs. Working directly with the **Product Engineering team on early-stage ideas** before they become full initiatives, bringing business context and translating it into technical decisions. - Guardrails on AI-assisted development. Our BizOps team ships production code with AI assistance. You'll review that work (architecture, infrastructure decisions, PRs) to make sure it's safe, reliable, and doesn't quietly generate tech debt we have to unwind later. - Build for reliability, not just speed. Design and build systems with real attention to **reliability, performance, and maintainability**. This is software that moves real money, so the bar is production-grade from day one. - Plug into the engineering team through code review, architecture feedback, and shared standards, so what you ship is production-grade and you get sharper with every initiative. You'll sit within Engineering but work alongside our Business Operations and Product Engineering teams. You will support our non-technical subject matter experts in deploying product to our production codebase, building systems from scratch and refining our coding harnesses to make them more use-friendly for non-technical users. We run parallel initiatives in small, high-autonomy teams, and we expect the people who join us to step up, make decisions, and take accountability for outcomes, technical and otherwise. ## **What you'll bring** - Deep **architectural** knowledge. You can look at a system and tell whether it's built right, not just whether it works. - **Platform/infrastructure fluency.** You understand what's underneath the application layer (Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure, data pipelines) even if you're not deploying it every day. - Strong software engineering ability within a **full-stack range.** You ship production code independently and have owned real systems end to end. You move comfortably between frontend and backend. - An AI-native operating bias. **AI is your default way of working**: multiple models, custom agents, and specialized contexts integrated into how you plan, build, and ship, not just Copilot autocomplete. - Proficiency in, or the ability to quickly ramp on, our stack: TypeScript, Next.js, and Python for internal tooling, and Go or Rust, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, and AWS on the core platform. - Experience designing and evolving scalable systems, with a clear point of view on the **tradeoffs** involved for all stakeholders and end-users. - A demonstrated ability to take a project from end-to-end: technical execution, stakeholder communication, and **delivery accountability.** - Cross-functional instincts. You're comfortable moving between Operations, Product, and Data and switching context across very different stakeholders without losing the thread. - A bias toward business impact. You want to solve real operational problems and understand how the business actually runs and makes money. - Comfort operating in **ambiguity**, with the judgment to work autonomously, make decisions, and take accountability for outcomes. - Pragmatism and speed. You know when to build something fast and scrappy and when to make it bulletproof, and you can flex across domains without spreading yourself thin. ## **Nice-to-haves** - Experience at a **fintech or payments company,** or somewhere you worked close to how money moves. - 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 (RabbitMQ or similar). - Background at a **fast-scaling startup**, or anywhere you owned systems end-to-end close to the business. ## **What we offer** - Competitive salary tailored to your experience, skills, and expertise. - The **base compensation range for this role is $200,000 - 250,000, plus equity.** The range displayed on each job posting reflects the approximate total target compensation for the position. Within the range, individual pay is determined by factors including relevant skills, experience, education/training. - Equity opportunities so you can share in our growth and success. - Unlimited PTO and flexibility when you need it the most. - Yearly learning & development stipend to help you grow and do your best work. ## **Why choose Alternative Payments?** At Alternative Payments, you'll do work that truly matters. - **Own your impact:** Build the internal systems the whole company runs on, and see your work used across the business every single 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 top of mind. We prioritize internal growth and give you the space to shape your path based on your goals, whether that's deepening your expertise in your domain or exploring something new. - **Thrive in a supportive culture:** As a scaling start-up, there's a lot to be done and initiative is key. We believe in shared learning, open communication, and building each other up. When one of us grows, we all do. ## **Want to see what we're actually building?** We made a short video so you don't have to take our word for it. Get a glimpse of our product, our people, and the problems we're solving, then decide if it sounds like your kind of place. ## **Our values** - **Transparency & Honesty:** We communicate openly and truthfully with partners, investors, and each other so everyone understands where we stand and where we're headed. - **Resourcefulness & AI:** We stay scrappy, find creative solutions, and make progress even when the path isn't obvious. We have a bias for action and seek out the information and resources necessary to make decisions and move quickly. - **Partnership:** We win and lose together. We collaborate with our partners, investors, and teammates to tackle big challenges and reach shared goals. - **Revolutionary & Boldness:** We challenge conventions, take calculated risks, and build better, stronger solutions that move our business and the industry forward. - **Accountability:** We take ownership of our decisions and results. We follow through on our commitments knowing our work directly impacts our partners, our team and our business. ## **Applying to Alternative Payments** We're looking for candidates who are ready to step in and make an impact from day one. We know that sometimes people hold back unless they meet every requirement, but if you're excited about the role, bring relevant experience, and are ready to contribute, we want to hear from you! All resumes are reviewed by our small but mighty talent team. While we may use AI tools to help prioritize applications, real people are behind every resume review and hiring decision. We're also committed to an inclusive and accessible process. If you require reasonable accommodation during the hiring process, please let us know upon being selected to interview.