About the Forward Deployed Engineer Role at Opptra

Opptra, headquartered in Bengaluru, India, is transforming global expansion for consumer brands by focusing on advanced ecommerce and digital capabilities. We build a diverse portfolio of category-specialized franchising businesses, all supported by a centralized technology platform and robust global supply chain infrastructure. Our unique model helps brands access high-potential Asian markets with reduced entry costs, broader consumer reach, and faster testing cycles than traditional retail.

Role Overview: Forward Deployed Engineer

As a Forward Deployed Engineer at Opptra, you will be a critical bridge between business operations and our cutting-edge AI systems. You will embed directly with various business teams (including Hardlines, Softlines, Supply Chain, Finance, Channel Ops, Brand Ops) to deeply understand real-world operational challenges. Your primary mission will be to rapidly deploy AI and data-driven solutions that automate decisions, significantly reduce manual effort, and improve profit margins.

This role is highly practical and hands-on, focusing on translating complex workflows, disparate data (spreadsheets, tribal knowledge) into scalable, AI-powered tools, APIs, and automations that deliver tangible business value. You will directly interact with data from marketplaces, Order Management Systems (OMS), Warehouse Management Systems (WMS), web intelligence, and internal systems, collaborating closely with non-technical stakeholders and central platform teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Deep Business Integration: Embed within teams to understand workflows in areas like catalogue operations, inventory planning, pricing, performance marketing, and supply chain execution. Identify high-impact automation and decision-support opportunities.
• Solution Development & Deployment: Build and deploy AI-driven solutions, including:
  • Decision engines (e.g., buying, replenishment, pricing, ad optimization)
  • Workflow automations (e.g., catalogue QA, exception handling, alerts)
  • Internal tools, APIs, and lightweight applications for operational teams.
• Data Integration & Prototyping: Work with data engineers to consume and utilize data from diverse sources (marketplaces, OMS/WMS, finance, web-crawled) via our central data platform. Rapidly prototype, test, and iterate solutions with continuous business user feedback.
• Productionization & Monitoring: Ensure models and automations are robustly productionized with strong reliability, monitoring, and clear success metrics.
• Adoption & Impact: Facilitate the adoption of AI tools by simplifying user experience, documenting workflows, and integrating AI into daily operational rhythms. Act as the "last mile" to ensure AI capabilities drive measurable business outcomes (cost reduction, revenue uplift, time saved) and feed insights back into central AI/data platform roadmaps.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Experience: 3-5 years in software engineering, data engineering, applied AI/ML, or roles heavily focused on automation.
• Technical Skills: Hands-on experience building production-grade systems using Python (preferred), SQL, and modern APIs.
• AI/ML Expertise: Practical exposure to AI/ML techniques (optimization, forecasting, classification, LLM-based workflows) with a strong emphasis on achieving business outcomes over theoretical concepts.
• Data Handling: Experience working with messy, real-world operational data (e-commerce, marketplaces, supply chain, finance, ERP/OMS/WMS).
• Adaptability & Collaboration: Comfortable in fast-paced environments with ambiguous problems and evolving requirements. Strong ability to translate complex business problems into clear technical solutions while collaborating with non-technical stakeholders.