Lead Solutions Engineer– Back Office Transformation

At Cadence, we hire and develop leaders and innovators who want to make an impact on the world of technology. Role Overview We are seeking a mid-level Solutions Engineer to help drive efficiency and transformation across back-office business units, including HR, Legal, Finance, and Marketing. Sitting within the Office of the CEO, this role requires a company-wide perspective and the ability to work across functions to identify practical opportunities for improvement. The role focuses on determining and implementing the right solution for each problem—whether that means process improvement, standard automation, AI-assisted workflows, or agent-based solutions that can reason, retrieve information, and take structured actions. The ideal candidate combines strong technical skills with business awareness, operates independently, and prioritizes practical outcomes over theoretical perfection. Key Responsibilities • Partner with HR, Legal, Finance, Marketing, and other back-office teams to understand workflows, pain points, and opportunities for improvement. • Assess whether each opportunity is best addressed through process cleanup, standard automation, AI-assisted workflows, or agent-based solutions. • Design, prototype, test, deploy, and iterate on practical solutions that improve efficiency, visibility, accuracy, or cycle time. • Make pragmatic tradeoff decisions based on business impact, complexity, cost, security, maintainability, and user adoption. • Work closely with IT to obtain necessary access, data, and tools, while formalizing specifications that enable long-term support or handoff. • Document workflows, solution logic, assumptions, and implementation details in a way that both technical and non-technical stakeholders can understand. • Operate independently on technical investigations and solution development while proactively communicating progress, risks, and tradeoffs. What You’ll Accomplish in Your First 6 Months • Build a strong understanding of Cadence’s business, Office of the CEO priorities, and selected back-office workflows across multiple functions; use that context to deliver 1–2 practical early wins that reduce manual effort, improve visibility, or shorten cycle time. • Identify and prioritize at least five high-value optimization opportunities, clearly distinguishing when the right answer is process cleanup, standard automation, AI-assisted workflow, or a more agentic solution. • Prototype and iterate on at least two solutions with real end users, incorporating feedback and balancing business impact, usability, cost, complexity, and maintainability. • Establish a repeatable approach for future transformation work, including opportunity intake, prioritization, IT partnership, access/data/tooling considerations, and prototype-to-production handoff. Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. • 3–5 years of relevant experience, or equivalent experience through graduate-level work. • Strong Python programming skills and experience building practical tools, automations, or data-driven applications. • Working knowledge of Large Language Models, Generative AI, prompt engineering, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation concepts including embeddings, search, generation, and caching. • Interest in or exposure to agentic development patterns, including workflows that use models, tools, memory, or external systems. • Familiarity with APIs, MCP, or other methods for connecting models and applications to data, tools, or business systems. • Ability to evaluate technical approaches in the context of business outcomes, user needs, maintainability, and operational constraints. • Strong communication skills to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences. Preferred Experience • Direct experience taking AI, automation, or data-driven solutions from prototype to production, including testing, documentation, user feedback, and operational support considerations. • Hands-on experience with agentic frameworks or production AI agent development. • Exposure to cross-functional business environments (HR, Finance, Legal, or Marketing). You’ll Be Successful If You • Are comfortable with ambiguous business problems and can translate them into practical technical solutions. • Know when not to use AI and can recommend simpler approaches when they are faster, cheaper, or more maintainable. • Can work independently, ask good questions, and move from discovery to prototype without heavy direction. • Communicate clearly with technical partners and business stakeholders, and prioritize adoption and business impact over technical novelty. The annual salary range for California is $114,800 to $213,200. You may also be eligible to receive incentive compensation: bonus, equity, and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. Please note that the salary range is a guideline and compensation may vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies and work location. Our benefits programs include: paid vacation and paid holidays, 401(k) plan with employer match, employee stock purchase plan, a variety of medical, dental and vision plan options, and more. We’re doing work that matters. Help us solve what others can’t.