AI Developer / Coach

Job Title: AI Developer / Coach

Location: Chicago, IL

Duration: 06 months contract

Job Description:

Role:

Most developers prefer building behind the scenes rather than educating large groups. This role requires someone comfortable with coaching, presenting, and leading a community of practice while remaining technically hands-on. someone who can balance technical AI expertise with coaching/education.

• Ideal Skill Set: Someone who can get deep into the technical details of AI/testing but isn''t focused on coding 24/7.
• AI Evangelist Component: Role will involve helping people think differently about AI and encouraging broader AI adoption.
• AI Ecosystem: Important to understand the evolving AI landscape, including different tools/agents and how platforms such as Claude, OpenAI, and Cursor differ.
• Claude Experience: Strong preference for candidates with meaningful Claude AI familiarity, alongside Playwright experience.

About the Role

Client ''s testing organization is undergoing a significant transformation with the upcoming go-live of Playwright + MCP and a broader initiative to expand AI-enabled development and testing across the organization.

Client is seeking an experienced AI Developer / Coach with 10+ years of software development, automation, QA, or engineering experience to help lead this transformation. This is a unique hybrid role that combines hands-on technical development with coaching, mentoring, and AI enablement.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned technology professional who can build, experiment, troubleshoot, and develop with AI tools while also teaching others how to effectively leverage AI in their day-to-day work. This person will work closely with Client ''s Testing COE, developers, QA engineers, Scrum Masters, RTEs, POs, Client, and other technology professionals to accelerate AI adoption and establish practical, scalable AI-assisted development and testing practices.

The successful candidate should be comfortable getting deep into the technical details while also standing in front of a room, leading hands-on sessions, answering questions, and helping teams change how they approach development and testing.

What You''ll Own

• AI Development & Enablement
• Lead the adoption of AI-assisted development and testing practices across Client .
• Leverage AI and LLM-based tools to accelerate software development, automation, test generation, debugging, documentation, and problem-solving.
• Demonstrate hands-on proficiency with Claude AI and other AI-assisted development tools and platforms.
• Evaluate emerging AI tools, agents, models, and capabilities and determine where they can provide meaningful value to Client teams.
• Help teams understand how to effectively use AI while maintaining engineering quality, security, reliability, and appropriate human oversight.
• Develop practical examples, demonstrations, reusable prompts, workflows, and AI-enabled solutions that teams can apply immediately.

Playwright + MCP Development

• Design, develop, and maintain automated testing solutions using Playwright.
• Support the adoption and implementation of Playwright + MCP across Client .
• Build and enhance MCP integrations that enable AI-assisted testing and development workflows.
• Develop reusable automation frameworks, utilities, components, and testing patterns.
• Troubleshoot automation, framework, environment, and MCP-related issues.
• Stay current with Playwright, MCP, LLMs, AI agents, and emerging AI development practices.

AI Coaching & Training

• Serve as a hands-on AI coach and technical advisor for Client technology teams.
• Lead workshops, training sessions, demonstrations, office hours, and hands-on labs focused on practical AI adoption.
• Coach developers and non-developers on how to incorporate AI into their existing workflows.
• Help Scrum Masters, RTEs, POs, Client, and other non-development roles understand how AI can support testing, analysis, documentation, and delivery.
• Create "broken project " and real-world exercises that allow teams to learn AI through practical application.
• Establish repeatable AI competency standards and learning paths for different technology roles.
• Provide ongoing support as teams experiment with and adopt new AI capabilities.

Automation Engineering & Standardization

• Establish standardized automation and AI-assisted development patterns across teams.
• Review AI-generated code and automation to ensure quality, maintainability, security, and appropriate coverage.
• Apply strong engineering judgment to determine when AI-generated solutions are production-ready.
• Partner with the Testing COE to establish reusable frameworks, standards, and best practices.
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual testing and development effort through automation and AI.
• Help teams move beyond simply using AI tools toward developing effective, repeatable AI-enabled workflows.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work directly with developers, QA engineers, Scrum Masters, RTEs, POs, Client, and technology leadership.
• Partner with Client ''s Testing COE and Engineering Excellence teams to understand existing capabilities and identify opportunities for AI adoption.
• Serve as a bridge between technical teams and broader business/technology stakeholders.
• Influence teams through hands-on expertise, education, experimentation, and collaboration rather than authority.
• Help establish a community of practice around AI-enabled development and testing.

Requirements:

• 10+ years of professional experience in software development, QA automation, SDET, test engineering, software engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• Strong hands-on software development and engineering experience.
• Strong hands-on experience with Playwright and modern test automation.
• Experience building automation frameworks using TypeScript, JavaScript, Java, Python, or similar languages.
• Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) or the ability to quickly develop and implement MCP-based solutions.
• Hands-on experience using AI/LLM tools in software development, testing, automation, or engineering workflows.
• Familiarity with Claude AI and experience applying it to development, testing, code generation, analysis, or automation.
• Understanding of AI agents, LLM workflows, prompt engineering, and AI-assisted development patterns.
• Ability to evaluate AI-generated code and solutions for correctness, quality, security, scalability, and maintainability.
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to educate both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor, coach, and influence teams through hands-on technical guidance.

Ideal Profile

• 10+ years of experience with a strong foundation in software engineering and automation.
• Experience spanning both development and testing/quality engineering.
• Deep understanding of automation frameworks, CI/CD, version control, debugging, and modern software development practices.
• Experience with Claude AI, OpenAI tools, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar AI development platforms.
• Experience building or experimenting with AI agents, MCP integrations, or LLM-powered workflows.
• Experience coaching developers or technology teams through adoption of new tools and engineering practices.
• Strong understanding of how AI is changing software development and testing.
• Comfortable being both hands-on in the code and hands-on with people.
• Ability to explain complex technical concepts in a simple, practical way.
• GCP/cloud experience is a plus.
• Atlassian ecosystem experience (Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, etc.) is helpful.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.

Compensation:

The hourly rate for this position is between $50.00-60.00 per hour.

Factors which may affect starting pay within this range may include [geography/market, skills, education, experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate].

Benefits:

Sunrise offers ACA compliant medical coverage/dental insurance/vision insurance to all employees. We also offer Sick time benefits as required per State regulations.

Contact:

Jaya Balaji: jayabalaji.s@sunrisesys.com | (732) 515-5373 | URL: www.sunrisesys.com