Job Title: Forward Deployed Engineer
Team: Development
Location: On-site - Edmonton, AB
Reports to: Manager - Innovation Hub
Status: Full Time Permanent
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OUR MISSION
Because of the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ, Hope Mission exists to serve the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of those in search of help, healing, and hope.
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Hope Mission is a Christian rescue mission that has served the hungry, hurting, and homeless across Alberta since 1929. Through emergency shelters, housing supports, addiction recovery, youth programs, and community outreach, we exist to serve, strengthen, and uplift men, women, youth, and children through the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Hope Mission believes that everyone deserves an opportunity for life change. Therefore, we aspire to be a leader and example of a faith-based organization that diligently serves, strengthens, uplifts, and shares hope with vulnerable men, women, youth, and children in the name of Jesus Christ, in communities at home and abroad.
About the Innovation Hub:
The Innovation Hub is Hope Mission's internal problem-solving team. We build the tools our frontline staff use every day - case management workflows, intake systems, data dashboards, and program-specific applications that help our teams serve people more effectively. We work agent-first, using modern AI coding agents to ship and maintain custom tools faster than traditional development allows, in close partnership with the ministry teams who use what we build.
About the Role:
The Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is the Innovation Hub's hands-on builder embedded with Hope Mission ministries. You will work directly with ministry stakeholders to understand their workflows and needs, scope and build the tools that help them serve people more effectively, and own those products from launch through ongoing iteration and maintenance. You will work agent-first, using AI coding agents to ship faster than traditional development allows, while bringing the engineering judgement that decides what to build, how to build it, and when to ship.
FDEs are contributors on the Innovation Hub team. You will set the technical bar, define the conventions the rest of the team works within, and grow the team's capacity by partnering with our Product Support Specialist and mentoring them toward the FDE role.
What you'll do:
- Embed with one or more Hope Mission ministries - sitting alongside staff, understanding their workflows, and building trusted relationships that turn into great software.
- Scope, design, and build internal tools end-to-end - case management workflows, intake systems, dashboards, and program-specific applications used by frontline ministry staff.
- Drive agent-first development using Claude Code and similar AI coding agents, exercising the engineering judgement to direct, review, and ship the codes those agents produce.
- Own your projects from initial conversation through launch, maintenance, and continued iteration - not just shipping features, but ensuring they keep working and keep being used.
- Partner with the Product Support Specialist on triage and resolution of bug reports and feature requests, and actively mentor them toward the FDE role.
- Define and improve the Innovation Hub's technical systems and standards - architecture, repos, deployment, monitoring, documentation, and code review practices.
- Communicate clearly with non-technical ministry stakeholders about what's possible, what's coming, and what tradeoffs are involved.
- Maintain technical documentation: architecture notes, runbooks, deployment guides, and decision records.
- Collaborate with the broader Innovation Hub team on strategy for client project development, delivery, and long-term maintenance.
What We're Looking For:
Required:
- Personal alignment with Hope Mission's Christian faith and mission, and a desire to use your work to serve vulnerable people in our community.
- Demonstrated full-stack software development experience - you can take a problem from initial conversation to shopped, working software that real users depend on.
- Hands-on experience working with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, or similar) and a clear sense of when to direct an agent versus when to take the keyboard yourself.
- Strong technical fundamentals: modern web frameworks (React, Next.js, or similar) APIs, relational databases, and version control with Git and GitHub.
- Ability to scope work directly with non-technical stakeholder - turning fuzzy problems into shippable products without a product manager standing between you and the user.
- Strong written and verbal communication; comfortable being the bridge between ministry teams and the technical world.
- Ownership mindset - you measure yourself by what gets in front of users and keeps working, not what gets to a pull request.
- Eligible to work in Canada and able to work on-site in Edmonton.
Nice to have:
- Prior experience working forward-deployed, embedded with end users, or in a small consultancy or agency setting.
- Experience deploying and operating software in production - CI/CD, monitoring, basic cloud infrastructure.
- Familiarity with project management tools such as ClickUp.
- Experience mentoring or growing more junior engineers.
- Experience working in nonprofit, social services, or faith-based organizations.
Why Join Us:
- Your work directly supports the staff who are caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our city, every day.
- You'll work on a small, mission-driven team using modern agent-first development practices.
- Set the technical direction for an early-stage internal software team, with real ownership over what we build and how we build it.
- Be part of an organization with nearly a century of history serving Edmonton and Alberta.
Other Requirements:
- Being a Christian Organization we require our employees to be in agreement and sign the Hope Mission Statement of Faith.
- Cover letter stating why you would like to work in a Christian organization.
- Must be legally entitled to work in Canada on a full-time basis.
- Able to provide Criminal Record Check with a Vulnerable Sector Search and a Child Intervention Record Check
- A letter of reference from a ministry or church is an asset
- Adherence to Hope Mission’s policies and procedures
We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Company events
Ability to commute/relocate:
- Edmonton, AB: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (required)
Application question(s):
- Tell us why you would like to work with a Christian organization. You can include this in your cover letter or below.
Work Location: In person
