AI & AUTOMATION ENGINEER

Westlake Securities is a Texas-based investment bank focused on serving middle-market companies across a wide range of industries. Since 2003, we've delivered senior-level attention, thoughtful strategic guidance, and hands-on execution to entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors navigating mergers and acquisitions, capital raises, and strategic alternatives. 2026 is shaping up to be the firm's most active year to date, with a record number of transactions spanning sell-side, buy-side, and capital raise engagements across industries including consumer products, food & beverage, industrials, manufacturing, business services, infrastructure services, healthcare, and technology. As part of our continued growth, Westlake is investing in technology to enhance how we execute deals, develop client materials, and operate as a firm. We are seeking an AI & Automation Engineer to design, build, and deploy the internal tools that support these efforts. For more information about Westlake, please visit: www.westlakesecurities.com Job Purpose/SummaryThe AI & Automation Engineer will work closely with Westlake's CEO and senior team to translate concepts into working systems across deal execution, marketing, and internal operations. Senior leadership will drive strategic direction and use cases; this role is responsible for the practical build, including, but not limited to: designing, integrating, deploying, and refining the tools that bring those ideas to life. Because the firm operates in a regulated industry and works with sensitive client and deal information, this role requires an engineer who builds with security, reliability, and production-readiness in mind. The role is well suited to a hands-on engineer who is energized by autonomy, enjoys solving loosely defined problems, and is motivated by applying technology to real business workflows. Key Responsibilities· Build, refine, and maintain internal tools that support deal execution (e.g., diligence tracking, CIM development, data organization), marketing and content pipelines, and lead generation and data workflows· Integrate AI models (e.g., LLM APIs such as Anthropic and OpenAI) with internal data sources and external tools, including documents, spreadsheets, data rooms, CRM systems, and third-party APIs· Design and implement workflow automations, including trigger-based processes, document ingestion and parsing, and structured output generation· Build lightweight internal platforms, dashboards, and interfaces through which the team can access and use these tools, and standardize outputs for consistent formatting and usability· Deploy and operate applications in secure, production-grade cloud environments with appropriate attention to authentication, access controls, data protection, and reliability· Improve the reliability and performance of existing tools by debugging failures, handling edge cases, and refining prompt structures and system logic· Own the end-to-end development lifecycle for internal tools (from design and build through testing, deployment, and iteration) in close collaboration with non-technical stakeholders Requirements/Qualifications· 3+ years of professional experience in software development, technical product development, or a comparable applied technical role, with demonstrated experience across the full development lifecycle· Hands-on experience deploying and managing applications in production cloud environments, including secure handling of sensitive data· Strong experience with API integrations, backend development, and workflow automation systems· Familiarity with AI and LLM-based systems, including prompt engineering, model orchestration, and structured output handling· Working knowledge of modern AI-assisted development tooling (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) and an ability to use these tools to accelerate delivery· Comfort working across both unstructured data (documents, PDFs, free-form text) and structured data (tables, spreadsheets, databases)· Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively alongside non-technical stakeholders· Self-starter who can manage multiple workstreams independently, with strong attention to detail and a builder's mindset for translating loosely defined concepts into working systems· Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience Preferred (but not required):· Experience building and deploying secure, scalable applications for financial services or other regulated, data-sensitive industries· Experience building internal tools or platforms (as opposed to solely customer-facing applications)· Proficiency in Python, JavaScript, or similar languages, with exposure to automation and orchestration frameworks· Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, deployment workflows, and runtime environments