Sr. AI Desktop Engineer_Tempe, AZ

Photon•United States,

18d•$56,000 - $196,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Client is investing in enterprise AI capabilities to accelerate delivery, enable self-service technology, and help teams solve meaningful business problems faster. Tulip is a strategic AI platform that provides reusable patterns, tools, and services to make AI-enabled solution delivery easier, safer, and more scalable across the organization. Increasingly, Tulip reaches the business through desktop applications used every day by corporate, support center, and operations teams across Mac and Windows. The Senior AI Desktop Engineer - Tulip Platform is a hands-on role responsible for designing, building, and shipping cross-platform desktop applications - built with Electron and running on both macOS and Windows - that put Tulip's AI capabilities directly into people's daily tools. The focus is user experience and workflow automation: replacing manual, fragmented, and browser-tab-sprawl processes with fast, native-feeling desktop workflows, deeply integrated with enterprise systems and secured through enterprise SSO and identity. The role also contributes to platform architecture, integration patterns, and engineering standards, and mentors peers through design discussion and code review. The ideal candidate is a pragmatic builder and strong technical partner who obsesses over the end-user experience, holds desktop software to a native-quality bar on both macOS and Windows, navigates ambiguity, and consistently delivers high-quality, AI-enabled desktop solutions aligned to business priorities.

Requirements

8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including significant hands-on experience building and shipping production cross-platform desktop applications with Electron (or comparable frameworks) on both macOS and Windows.
Demonstrated focus on user experience: partnering with design, prototyping and testing with real users, and shipping interfaces that are fast, accessible, and intuitive for non-technical corporate and operations staff.
Experience automating manual and fragmented workflows into desktop-first digital processes, including local caching and sync, background and long-running tasks, native OS notifications, deep links and protocol handlers, file system and clipboard integration, and multi-window experiences.
Experience integrating AI-enabled services into end-user applications, including large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, agent or workflow orchestration, conversational and voice interfaces, and responsible AI guardrails at the point of use.
Strong API and integration skills: consuming and shaping REST, GraphQL, and event-driven services, and working with backend and platform engineers to make desktop clients performant and resilient.
Experience with desktop release and quality practices: code signing and macOS notarization, auto-update channels, enterprise distribution through Intune, Jamf, or comparable MDM, CI/CD for multi-platform builds, crash and performance monitoring, automated UI testing, and phased rollouts.
Working proficiency in Python or a comparable backend language, with enough platform and cloud fluency (Azure, AWS, or GCP; containers; CI/CD; observability) to extend Tulip services where the desktop experience requires it.
Experience securing desktop and enterprise integrations, including OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect, enterprise SSO on managed Mac and Windows endpoints, local data protection using the OS keychain and credential vault, and secrets management.
Strong communication skills, with the ability to work directly with corporate and operations teams to observe how work actually gets done and translate that into technical designs and executable engineering work.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field preferred, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience building desktop or internal productivity applications for corporate, support center, finance, or operations teams in complex enterprise environments.
Experience with design systems, accessibility standards, usability testing, and instrumenting product analytics to measure adoption and task completion.
Familiarity with Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Fabric, vector search, prompt orchestration, or agentic AI frameworks, and with enterprise AI governance and responsible AI controls.
Experience integrating desktop applications with enterprise systems such as Microsoft 365, ERP, ticketing, HRIS, data platforms, or identity providers.
Experience working in retail, restaurant, ecommerce, loyalty, finance, supply chain, or high-volume enterprise environments.
Experience partnering with product managers, designers, business analysts, forward deployed engineers, and enterprise architects to move ideas from user discovery to delivery.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and ship desktop applications on Tulip that corporate, support center, and operations teams find fast, intuitive, and worth using every day.
Replace manual, fragmented, and browser-tab-sprawl steps with automated desktop workflows, using AI capabilities such as orchestration, RAG, agents, and conversational interfaces where they add real value.
Integrate desktop applications with Tulip services and enterprise systems, and extend platform capabilities where the experience requires it.
Apply and improve practices for secure, maintainable, testable, and observable desktop and service engineering, including release management and phased rollouts.
Contribute to documentation, design reviews, and shared UI and integration patterns that strengthen how the team builds desktop AI solutions.
Spend time with corporate and operations teams, translate what you observe into product decisions, and tie delivered experiences to measurable business value.