AI Engineer

About Ovative Group:

Ovative Group is an independent, full-funnel media, measurement, and creative firm. Leveraging our deep industry expertise, we help brands like Best Buy, Domino's, American Eagle, The Home Depot, Post, Disney, Tumi, Michael Kors, Boost Mobile, and UnitedHealth Group transform their media and measurement programs. The result? Profitable growth that speaks for itself.

About the Role:

Most companies are still figuring out what it means to be AI-native. Ovative is building it. We have 500+ people across media, measurement, analytics, and strategy who are being asked to work fundamentally differently — and this role is responsible for building and maintaining the technical infrastructure that makes that possible. The things you ship will be in active use across the organization — by real people doing real work.

This role is responsible for building and maintaining the technical components that keep that system running and expanding. You will implement integrations between our AI platform and the tools people work in every day, build and maintain automated workflows — including the write-back logic that routes outputs into the systems people already work in — and serve as a technical resource for practitioners who are building on top of the infrastructure.

You report into the AI Strategy & Application team and work closely with IT, the enablement team, and domain experts across the organization. This is a hands-on build role — the expectation is that you are shipping real things that real people are using. The users of what you build are primarily non-engineers.

Responsibilities of an AI Engineer:

• Build and maintain integrations connecting our enterprise AI platform to the tools and data sources the organization works in — project management, communications, analytics, and others

• Implement multi-step automated workflows following the orchestration patterns and technical standards established for the program

• Maintain the system write-back layer: build and sustain the logic that routes outputs, updates task statuses, and writes results back into the operational systems people already use — this is core to how the system closes the loop

• Serve as a technical resource for domain experts and practitioners when builds go beyond what they can execute independently; help teams scope what is and is not feasible within the current infrastructure

• Participate in review processes for new agents or automated workflows before organization-wide deployment

• Troubleshoot integration issues and maintain reliability across the integration layer

• Contribute to post-deployment monitoring and observability — flag when workflows behave unexpectedly in production, identify failure patterns, and escalate or resolve as appropriate

• Apply security requirements consistently across all builds: access controls, credential management, audit logging, and principle of least privilege — particularly in integrations that touch operational systems across the organization

• Contribute to technical documentation and training content that helps the organization build more independently over time

Requirements:

• 4+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, or applied technical roles

• Demonstrated experience building and maintaining integrations, automation workflows, or AI-powered tools in a production environment

• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL, with experience writing production-quality code

• Experience building API integrations or connecting enterprise SaaS platforms through standard integration patterns, including write-back and bidirectional data flows

• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure); experience with Databricks is strongly preferred

• Demonstrated hands-on experience working with large language models in production: context windows, prompt structure, tool use, and agent behavior

• Practical experience applying security requirements in production systems: access controls, credential management, audit logging, and principle of least privilege

• Familiarity with CI/CD practices and how changes move safely from development to production

• Familiarity with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or similar tool-use and agent orchestration frameworks; comfort with how agents call tools, manage context, and execute multi-step workflows

• Comfort operating in an environment where requirements evolve; you can make progress and flag blockers without waiting for a complete spec

• Ability to work effectively across technical and non-technical teammates — you can explain what you built and why it matters to someone who has never written code

Preferred

• Experience working with Claude Enterprise or the Anthropic API

• Experience supporting non-technical users in building or using automated workflows

• Exposure to project management, analytics, or communications platform integrations

• Prior experience in a marketing analytics, media, or professional services environment

Pay Transparency

At Ovative, we offer a transparent view into three core components of your total compensation package: Base Salary, Annual Bonus, and Benefits. The salary range for this position below is inclusive of an annual bonus. Actual offers are made with consideration for relevant experience and anticipated impact. Additional benefits information is provided below.

For our AI Engineer positions, our compensation ranges from $90,000 to $132,000, which is inclusive of a 20% bonus.

Benefits of Working at Ovative Group:

We provide strong, competitive, holistic benefits that understand the importance of your life inside and out of work.

Culture: 

Culture matters and we’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace for ten years running because of it. We demand trust and transparency from each other. We believe in doing the hard and complicated work others put off. We’re open in communication and floor plan. We’re flat – our interns sit next to VPs, our analysts work closely with senior leaders, and our CEO interacts with every single person daily. Put together, these elements help foster an environment where smart people can support each other in performing to their highest potential.

Ovative is committed to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone can participate and thrive. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, including on the basis of race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Our policies reflect this commitment—for example, our medical leave benefits are inclusive of same-sex partners, ensuring equitable care and support for all families.

Compensation and Insurance: 

We strive to hire and retain the best talent. Paying fair, competitive compensation, with a large bonus incentive, and phenomenal health insurance is an important part of this mix.

We’re rewarded fairly and when the company performs well, we all benefit.

Tangible amenities we enjoy: 

• Access to all office spaces in MSP, NYC, and CHI

• Frequent, paid travel to our Minneapolis headquarters for company events, team events, and in-person collaboration with teams

• Generous paid vacation policy

• 401k match program

• Top-notch health insurance options, inclusive of same sex partners

• Family formation benefits including reimbursement options for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting needs

• Monthly stipend for your mobile phone and data plan

• Sabbatical program

• Charitable giving via our time and a financial match program

• Shenanigan’s Day

Working at Ovative won’t be easy, but if you like getting your hands dirty, driving results, and being surrounded by the best talent, it’ll be the most rewarding job you’ll ever have. If you think you can make us better, we want to hear from you!