Automation & AI Engineer

The Role

We're looking for a builder - someone who sees inefficiency and can't leave it alone. Who ships real things, not decks about things.

Bash is TFG's digital division a fast-moving, product-led business at the intersection of retail, data, and technology. We move quickly, care about outcomes over activity, and we're building an AI-native way of working that most companies are still only talking about.

This role sits inside our automation team, reporting directly to the Head of Data. You'll own the full lifecycle of automation and AI initiatives - from spotting the opportunity, to designing the solution, building it, shipping it, and making sure it actually sticks. That means training people on it, supporting it, and continuously improving it.

You'll also be the technical anchor for the rest of the team - not managing, but leading by doing and helping them level up alongside you.

What You'll Own

Workflow Automation: Identify and eliminate repetitive, high-friction internal processes. If a human is doing something a machine should do, you'll fix it.

AI Agents & Pipelines: Design and build agentic systems using tools like Claude Code. You're not afraid of multi-step autonomous workflows - you architect them properly.

Visual Merchandising Automation: Automate content and product configuration on the Bash site - including Strapi CMS generation - to reduce manual effort and increase consistency across our catalogue.

Data Tooling & Dashboards: Build internal tools that put the right data in front of the right people at the right moment - embedding guidance and decision support directly into workflows.

Operator-Facing Tools: Create lightweight applications and interfaces that help internal teams and partners do their jobs faster, with better information and less friction.

End-to-End Ownership: You don't hand things off to be operationalised - you operationalise them. Requirement → design → build → ship → train → improve → close.

Who You Are

• A competent software engineer who has fully embraced agentic development - you use AI tooling not as a novelty but as a core part of how you work, think, and ship.
• You have a proven track record of building things end to end, solo. You've taken a rough idea from a conversation all the way to something running in production that people actually use.
• Data-led. You don't go with your gut when you can go with evidence. You ask "how will we know if this worked?" before you start building.
• Entrepreneur mindset - you care about the problem as much as the code. ROI, time-to-value, and real-world impact matter to you.
• You close things off properly. No trail of 80%-done projects. You ship, document, train, and move on cleanly.
• Self-directed and high agency - you don't need a detailed brief to get started. You ask sharp questions early, then get on with it.
• Appropriately skeptical. You push back when something doesn't make sense and you're not afraid to say "I don't know, but I'll find out."
• You know what good looks like without obsessing over perfection. You make pragmatic calls and iterate.
• Genuinely excited by simplicity. The best solution is usually the smallest one that works well. Complexity for its own sake doesn't impress you.
• Low ego. You share credit, ask openly for help, and are energised when other team members ship something great.

Ask Yourself

On Shipping: Can you name three things you've built end to end - from the original problem all the way to someone using it in their daily work? Not a prototype. Not a POC. Something live.

On Data: When you shipped your last project, how did you define success before you started? What did the data tell you afterward?

On AI Tooling: How does agentic development actually show up in your day-to-day work? What have you built with tools like Claude Code or Cursor that you couldn't have shipped as fast without them?

On Simplicity: Tell us about a time you chose the simpler solution over the more technically interesting one. Why? Was it the right call?

On Closing: What does "done" mean to you? Walk us through what happens after you push to production.

Tech Stack

Core tools you'll work with. Nice-to-have experience is a bonus, not a blocker — what matters is that you learn fast and build well.

Claude Code · Agentic Pipelines · Strapi CMS · Snowflake · Postgres / Supabase · Vercel · Retool · AWS · dbt · Python · TypeScript / Node · REST APIs

Why This Role

This isn't a role where you sit in ticket queues waiting to be told what to build. You'll have direct access to the person setting the data and automation agenda for the business, real problems worth solving, and the autonomy to go solve them. 

You'll work on things that tangibly reduce friction in how Bash operates - and you'll see the impact. You'll also be building in an environment that's genuinely embracing AI-native ways of working, not just talking about it. 

If you're the kind of engineer who gets frustrated when good ideas go nowhere, and energised when they ship - this is your environment.

Our Values 

Bold: We back ideas with action and aren't afraid to try things that haven't been done before.

Accountable: We own our outcomes - the good ones and the ones that teach us something.

Simple: We cut what doesn't add value. Clarity over complexity, always.

Human: We build for real people and we treat each other like them too.

We ask a few optional demographic questions to monitor fairness in hiring and comply with South Africa’s Employment Equity requirements. Your responses are confidential - stored separately from your application and never shown to hiring panels. We review the data only in aggregate to strengthen our sourcing so pipelines are diverse and all candidates receive equitable support. You can skip any question.