Business Systems and AI Engineer

Position Overview

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation seeks a Business Systems and AI Engineer to advance its work with artificial intelligence and build reliable systems that support grantmaking and operations. The Foundation has adopted an AI policy and strategy, is well along in enabling its staff, and is building its own AI infrastructure. This role partners closely with the Director of Information Technology and Grants Management, bringing independent technical judgment to decisions about what to buy, build, improve, and maintain.

This is a new position on the Information Technology and Grants Management team. The role combines hands-on engineering with responsibility for shared AI tools and staff learning. Working directly with program, grants, finance, communications, and operations colleagues, the Business Systems and AI Engineer will translate needs into practical improvements and help staff use AI effectively. A central responsibility is making the Foundation’s custom software understandable, documented, and maintainable by others over time.

Key Responsibilities

AI direction and shared tools

• Help develop and implement the Foundation’s AI priorities and choose the right platforms and tools. Evaluate needs and options, including purchasing services, building tailored solutions, and continuing existing approaches, considering value, cost, reliability, security, and long-term maintenance.
• Develop and maintain centrally supported AI tools, agents, and integrations, including tools that help staff search and draw on institutional knowledge. Manage access, evaluate output quality, and monitor usage and operating costs.
• Help get the Foundation’s data ready for AI, including cleaning up data, tightening file permissions, and reducing oversharing in Microsoft 365 and Box.
• Assess relevant AI developments and explain their practical implications to staff and leadership. Help establish standards for evaluation, human review, data privacy and security, and responsible use consistent with Foundation policies.

Business systems and sustainable engineering

• Work with staff to understand their needs and lead prioritized projects from discovery and design through implementation, rollout, and ongoing support.
• Build and maintain applications, APIs, automations, and integrations connecting Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Box, and external research and data sources. Improve the grants management system and related reporting and data quality.
• Work within the Foundation’s existing systems, including Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Box, internal APIs and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and Postgres, using AI-assisted development tools. Design and maintain the CI/CD pipelines that test and deploy changes.
• Review and strengthen existing custom software. Maintain documentation, tests, deployment procedures, and operational guides so another qualified person can understand, modify, and support the systems.
• Operate services reliably through monitoring, troubleshooting, and incident response. Coordinate with external partners on implementation, security, and specialist support.

Staff learning and collaboration

• Develop practical training, guides, and individual support that help colleagues use approved AI tools effectively, understand their limitations, and review their outputs.
• Help staff assess experiments and, where appropriate, turn useful approaches into shared, supported tools. Gather feedback and evaluate whether new tools improve the work they were designed to support.
• Provide backup technology support when other IT staff are unavailable, such as help desk requests, A/V for meetings, and enterprise software administration, and coordinate with the Foundation’s managed service provider to resolve issues.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• 5+ years of related professional experience and a bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, AI, or a related field (or an equivalent combination of education and experience).
• Strong programming skills in Python or TypeScript, experience building APIs and integrations, and working knowledge of SQL.
• Experience with Git and GitHub, testing, code review, and CI/CD pipelines such as GitHub Actions, and the ability to understand and improve an existing codebase.
• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code or Codex, with the ability to explain, test, debug, and take responsib…