AI Solutions Engineer

Welcome to the Table. At Sur La Table, community, culinary joy, and celebration are at the heart of who we are. From monthly spotlights to the Golden Whisk awards and cooking class perks, our culture blends recognition with hands-on experiences. New team members are welcomed with care and inspired by wellness events, inclusive stories, and a personal touch that makes you feel right at home.

Reports to: VP of Strategy and AI Transformation

Location: Remote - Canada

About the Role

Sur La Table needs AI-powered automations and tooling that work across marketing, operations, creative, and logistics - and this role exists to build, ship, and own them. As AI Solutions Engineer, you will design and deploy production-grade automations, evaluate and recommend AI tools, set the integration patterns other teams build on, and own the reliability of everything that goes live.

Success in the first 6-12 months means live production automations with active cross-departmental usage, documented reductions in manual labor, and sound build-vs-buy decisions that shape Sur La Table's AI tooling strategy.

This is a lean team. You will own a lot, move fast, and make decisions with full end-to-end responsibility.

What You'll Do

• Build and deploy AI tools and automations across Sur La Table's teams including image processing, feed optimization, content generation, reporting, document processing, and workflow streamlining.
• Automate day-to-day workflows across the business. Replacing manual, repetitive processes (data entry, document extraction, audits, approvals, reporting) with reliable, low-maintenance pipelines.
• Build MCP servers and AI-agent architectures. Reusable connectors, Claude Desktop extensions, and agent tooling that let AI systems securely access internal data, platforms, and APIs.
• Connect software systems and APIs into integrated, reusable workflows across teams and systems with minimal reconfiguration.
• Work directly with teams to understand their manual processes, map them, and build AI-powered solutions that replicate and improve them.
• Write scripts (Python, JavaScript/TypeScript) and design AI workflows using platforms like Claude and ChatGPT alongside workflow automation tools (n8n, Zapier, Make, or similar).
• Cross-connect data across platforms including marketing systems (Google Ads, Meta Ads, Google Analytics, Google Merchant Center), content management systems, image libraries, and internal data sources.
• Drive AI adoption - run enablement sessions, hands-on trainings, and office hours, and build internal documentation and knowledge bases so teams can self-serve.

Org-Level Impact & Decision Making

• Evaluate vendor AI tools. Run pilots, assess ROI and feasibility, and make build-vs-buy recommendations that shape Sur La Table's AI tooling.
• Assess AI tool security and data-governance risk (credential/PII exposure, data handling and retention), flag issues, and influence remediation with security and engineering stakeholders.
• Define reusable patterns and standards for automations and integrations so solutions are consistent and scale cleanly across teams.
• Prioritize the automation roadmap by ROI - identifying the highest-impact opportunities and sequencing the work.
• Own production reliability of what you ship. Monitoring, error-alerting, root-cause analysis, and data-integrity fixes.

Required Qualifications

• 2-5 years building automations, integrations, or AI-powered tools in a marketing, e-commerce, or operations environment, including shipping to production.
• Strong working knowledge of AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, or similar) and the ability to design reliable, production-grade AI workflows, prompts, and agents.
• Experience with workflow automation platforms (n8n preferred; Zapier, Make, or similar accepted).
• Comfortable writing Python and JavaScript/TypeScript to connect APIs, process data, and build lightweight applications and integrations.
• Familiarity with building MCP servers or AI-agent architectures (or comparable connector/tooling development).
• Sound judgment on AI tool security and data privacy. Able to assess risk in tools handling sensitive data.
• Ability to evaluate options and make recommendations that influence org-level tooling decisions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience operating production AI/automation systems with monitoring and alerting.
• Background in retail, DTC, or multi-brand e-commerce environments.
• Experience training or onboarding non-technical users on new tools.
• Familiarity with data tooling ( SharePoint/Excel, SQL) and dashboards/data products.
• Experience with n8n specifically.

Why Join

The people who do best here are builders. They take ownership, move fast, and want to see the direct impact of their work.

• Cross-Functional Impact: Your automations touch every part of the Sur La Table business - marketing, e-commerce, creative, logistics, and operations.
• AI-First Skill Building: Work with advanced AI tools, agent architectures, and automation platforms - building rare, durable expertise in production AI engineering.
• Ownership & Influence: Ship end-to-end and help decide what Sur La Table builds and adopts - broader scope than a typical engineering role.
• Competitive Benefits: Paid time off policies, RRSP match, medical, dental, and vision coverage, a variety of supplemental benefit options, and employee discounts across our portfolio of brands.

Interview Process

• Recruiter Screen - A 30-minute conversation with our recruiting team to align on the role, your background, and what you are looking for.
• Take-Home Project
• Technical Interview - 60 minute technical deep dive & project debrief with the Business Intelligence Manager of AI & Automation.
• Hiring Manager Interview - A conversation with the Vice President of Strategy and AI Transformation focused on your automation and AI engineering experience.
• Additional Interview (TBD)
• Reference Checks - Conducted in parallel with the final stages where possible.
• Offer - We move quickly for the right candidate.

Interview process is subject to change. Any updates will be communicated promptly and clearly.