Customer Engineer

At Just Appraised, we're replacing outdated, manual local government workflows with modern software used by hundreds of government agencies across the United States. Our cutting-edge, AI-powered software replaces manual data entry to eliminate delays, backlogs, and errors. This work directly impacts how communities fund schools, infrastructure, and public services.

About the Role

The Customer Engineer is the most technical seat in our go-to-market organization. You own each customer installation end to end: partnering with Sales to gather requirements, architecting the right solution, scoping a precise Statement of Work, and then staying accountable through implementation, User Acceptance Testing, and go-live. This is a hands-on engineering role with direct customer ownership, not a program management or handoff-and-advise position. You will work in Python and SQL regularly, against real county data, in environments where integration paths are rarely clean.

This is also a genuinely on-site role. You run the initial customer kickoff yourself and own infrastructure, network, and data flow setup before Implementation Engineering ever joins the project, often on-site. Expect regular travel to customer counties (10 to 15 business days per quarter); if on-site deployment work isn't energizing to you, this won't be the right fit.

We evaluate on demonstrated technical signal, not years of experience. Strong junior and mid-level candidates with real ETL, data transformation, and customer-facing delivery experience are encouraged to apply.

Own delivery from scoping through go-live. Serve as the accountable owner for each customer installation from the Sales process through launch. You scope it, you see it live. Partner closely with Implementation Engineering, but the customer outcome is yours, including managing scope creep, new requests, and risks that emerge mid-implementation.

Run kickoff and stand up the technical foundation. Conduct the initial project kickoff and own infrastructure, network, and data flow setup before the implementation phase begins; securing system access, validating connectivity, and ensuring the project starts on solid technical ground.

Customer engagement and technical discovery. Engage with prospective customers during the Sales process to deeply understand their operational needs, technical environment, and integration landscape, including the third-party software vendors and systems they depend on. Ask the discovery questions that prevent surprises after contract signature.

Architect custom solutions. Design tailored solutions using the Just Appraised product suite to streamline customer workflows. Assess integration feasibility hands-on: query and profile customer data, evaluate data access constraints, and validate assumptions against the customer's actual systems rather than their descriptions of them.

Scoping and documentation. Define expected product functionality and scope Statements of Work with detailed software and configuration specifications. Translate ambiguous customer requests into tightly scoped technical requirements that engineering can build against without rework. Document integration dependencies, infrastructure requirements, and vendor coordination before implementation begins.

Manage expectations and risk. Set clear expectations for the time, effort, and cost implications of custom features. Identify and communicate technical risks early, particularly when a customer's existing systems or vendor relationships may impact the integration path.

Cross-functional launch coordination. Collaborate with Sales, Implementation Engineering, and Customer Success to coordinate successful launches, including daily stand-ups, kickoff meetings, training, and UAT. Serve as the point of coordination with third-party software vendors, understanding when vendor cooperation is required and finding viable paths forward when constraints exist.

Product expertise and enhancement. Maintain expert-level knowledge of key product functionality. Feed implementation insights back into the product as championed, concrete enhancement proposals.

Hands-on technical proficiency: Python and SQL. You can write and read both. You'll use them to profile customer datasets, validate data mappings, scope ETL work, and sanity-check integration assumptions.

ETL and data transformation fluency. Working experience with how data actually moves between systems: ETL pipelines, data transformation and mapping, RESTful APIs, SFTP-based exchanges, file-based transfers, and database connectivity, including legacy and on-premise environments where documentation is thin and creative problem-solving is required. Hands-on data transformation experience is one of the strongest signals for this role.

Delivery ownership. A demonstrated track record of owning technical projects past the planning phase, through build, testing, and launch, with an external customer on the other end. Scoping-only or pre-sales-only backgrounds are not a fit for this role.

AI-fluent working style built on real fundamentals. You use AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or similar) as a daily part of how you work for research, drafting, data analysis, and deconstructing workflows, and can point to concrete workflows you've rebuilt with them. We are an AI company; our team works this way natively. Critically, AI accelerates your fundamentals rather than substituting for them. You understand the underlying logic of the pipelines, queries, and scripts you ship, and can reason about them without a model in the loop.

Technical translation and communication. Exceptional verbal and written communication with a proven ability to translate between technical and non-technical audiences. You should be comfortable presenting integration architecture to a county IT team and explaining project timelines to an elected official in the same meeting.

Customer empathy and partnership. Demonstrated ability to build trust with stakeholders quickly, with a user-centered mindset and the ability to relay customer goals and constraints accurately to the internal team.

Technical scoping and judgment. Proven ability to scope technical work with enough precision that engineering can build against it, knowing what questions to ask during discovery so an SOW doesn't leave critical integration details unresolved.

Autonomy and work ethic. We have no dedicated PM, QA, or UX functions; everyone here owns outcomes end to end. You should be able to learn continuously, work independently, make decisions with minimal supervision, and manage shifting priorities in a high-growth environment.

Ability and willingness to travel. This role requires on-site customer deployment travel of 10 to 15 business days per quarter (approximately 15 to 20% annually). On-site kickoffs and deployments are core to the job, not occasional.

• Experience delivering technology solutions to local government, property tax administration, or public sector customers
• Familiarity with CAMA systems, large ERP platforms, or other domain-specific government software
• Experience navigating third-party vendor ecosystems, including coordinating with external software providers on integration requirements, API access, or data exchange agreements
• A software engineering background (current or prior) with production experience

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and stock equity plan
• Comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• Company sponsored pre-tax retirement savings program (401k)
• A flexible work environment that supports working from home
• Flexible PTO
• Parental Leave
• Home office stipend