AI Implementation Engineer, Customer in Christchurch, Canterbury at Phocas Software

Phocas Software is a profitable, growing SaaS company with a loyal customer base and a category-leading product. With a clear path toward scaling from $70M to $250M and a reimagined GTM structure, this is a prime moment to join and shape the future of how we deliver value to customers.

We know that fun is different for everyone. So, if you want to try out innovative approaches to sales, lead a project, save the planet, or spend more time with your favourite people outside work, you’ll have our full support.

As long as you’re doing what brings you joy, the rest falls into place. Think less stress, higher performance, more energy and all-round nicer human. Your friends and family will be delighted.

Create your happy place

We're looking for an Applied AI Engineer to join our Professional Services team in Christchurch. This is a role that's equal parts delivery and invention.

You'll work hands-on with experienced consultants to deliver customer implementations and bespoke services, while simultaneously building the AI tools and agents that make that work faster, more consistent, and higher quality. This is a deliberately experimental role: you learn the work by doing it, spot where the friction is, and build things that fix it.

It's not a research role. It's not a purely technical one either. It sits right in the middle, where implementation knowledge meets engineering instinct, and the measure of success is tools that are live, used, and making a real difference to how Phocas delivers.

What you'll be doing

• Contributing to customer implementations and bespoke services working alongside experienced Professional Services Consultants
• Hands-on delivery is both a core responsibility and your best source of insight into where tooling can help.
• Building AI tools and agents that improve implementation speed, consistency, and quality - you will be building things that reach production and get adopted by the team.
• Identifying recurring friction and manual effort in implementation workflows and targeting them with automation.
• Running structured experiments with new AI approaches, and producing honest read-outs of what worked and what didn't.
• Supporting selected Customer Success projects where the same skills add value, such as agents that improve customer engagement, as a secondary focus alongside core delivery.
• Documenting everything so tools can be maintained and owned by the team.

What good looks like

• Implementations delivered to a high standard, with growing independence over time.
• At least one AI tool live in production with a measurable effect on delivery efficiency or quality, and more in progress.
• A repeatable pattern for spotting friction, building a fix, shipping it, and handing it over.
• Experiments run with clear read-outs that shape where we invest next.
• Tools that don't depend on you to operate.

What you'll bring

This is an early career role. We're looking for the right instincts and a genuine desire to learn. You're someone who:

• Builds things. You have a portfolio of working software, through study, personal projects, or internships, and you're comfortable with APIs, modern frameworks, and figuring things out.
• Is energised by AI, not just interested in it. You want to apply it to real problems, not theorise about it.
• Thrives in ambiguity. You treat failed experiments as information and don't need a perfect brief to get started.
• Thinks about outcomes. Before you build something, you ask whether it will actually be used and whether it will make things better.
• Communicates clearly. You can explain technical work in plain English to consultants and customers alike.
• Wants to learn. You'll be paired with experienced implementers and technical specialists, so you can lean in, ask good questions, and absorb fast.

This is a unique opportunity to join a professional services environment in a product company, build real things with real impact, and help define what AI-assisted delivery looks like at Phocas. If you want to build things that matter and learn by doing, we'd love to hear from you!

Please note: due to current immigration restrictions, we can only consider applicants based in NZ with citizenship, residency, or a current work visa.

Benefits

• Generous remuneration package including competitive salary, Southern Cross and other benefits
• Fantastic opportunities for growth and development
• Work with & learn from some of the best tech talent in Christchurch
• Central location with plenty of parking for cars/bikes/scooters
• The usual range of snacks and beverages to keep you going