Product Development Lead, AI & Enterprise Platforms

AFC Companies • Chicago, IL

15h • $160,000 - $200,000 • Onsite

About The Position

The Product Development Lead owns products that connect AFC’s operations, people, and data. Reporting to the Vice President of Technology & Operational Excellence, the role combines hands-on software and AI engineering with leadership of distributed developers and development partners. Success is measured by reliable tools employees use, reduced manual work, and measurable business improvements.

The position works directly with department leaders and frontline employees to turn business problems into products, owns roadmap and delivery in partnership with the VP, and leads product development from discovery through launch, adoption, monitoring, and support handoff. The role is based in the Tampa headquarters or AFC’s Chicago office and requires working in the office five days per week. Collaboration with U.S. leadership and overseas developers requires some time-zone overlap and periodic travel to AFC locations.

Requirements

• Typically 7+ years in software engineering, or equivalent demonstrated experience, including technical leadership and ownership of production systems.
• Experience owning enterprise products from discovery and prioritization through launch and adoption, with measurable results.
• Direct experience managing distributed developers or development partners, including coaching, performance management, and delivery across time zones.
• Hands-on production AI experience with LangGraph, including tool use, persistence, human approvals, evaluation, and permission-aware retrieval.
• Strong Python, TypeScript, SQL, and API skills.
• Production AWS and PostgreSQL experience and practical Supabase familiarity.
• Ability to explain technical decisions clearly to executives, developers, and business users.

Nice To Haves

• Transportation, logistics, ERP, or fleet-system experience, including tools such as McLeod, Samsara, Fullbay, Greenhouse, or Paylocity.
• Experience with LangSmith, AWS Bedrock, infrastructure as code, Docker, or n8n.
• Experience building shared identity, permissions, audit, search, and integration services across enterprise applications.

Responsibilities

• Work with department leaders and frontline employees to map workflows, define requirements, and validate solutions.
• Own the product roadmap and delivery with the Vice President, maintaining an actionable backlog and communicating tradeoffs involving scope, dependencies, cost, and delivery.
• Lead a distributed development team by setting ownership, working-hour overlap, and written handoffs; coach engineers; and hold development partners accountable for quality and delivery.
• Build production AI and integrations using LangGraph/LangChain, APIs, and MCP, with reliable state, human approvals, permissions, evaluations, and recovery.
• Design and build critical platform components across AWS, Supabase/PostgreSQL, Python/FastAPI, and TypeScript/React/Next.js.
• Own testing, release readiness, adoption, monitoring, and support handoffs; measure business results as well as features shipped.
• Collaborate with U.S. leadership and overseas developers, including some schedule overlap across time zones and periodic travel to AFC locations.

Benefits

• Competitive base pay of $160,000 to $200,000, plus a 15% target bonus.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage starting the first of the month after 60 days.
• 401(k).
• 80 hours of PTO per year.
• Weekly pay.
• A clear path to grow, with leaders who know your name.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed