AI Engineer

• Tullamarine

• Monday to Friday

• Parking on site

• Available for immediate start

Who are Direct Couriers?

Direct Couriers is an Australian-owned courier company established in 1983 and now one of the leading logistics and transportation providers across Australia and New Zealand. With over 1,500 team members, we deliver reliable same-day, overnight and international solutions for businesses of all sizes.

At Direct Couriers, our people are at the centre of everything we do. We pride ourselves on a supportive, inclusive workplace where team members are treated like family and encouraged to grow. We invest in our people, promote from within wherever possible, and hire with the future in mind, not just for today's role, but for the opportunities ahead. If you're looking for a workplace that values development, teamwork and long-term careers, you'll feel right at home here.

The Role

The AI Specialist is a hands-on, senior role responsible for finding where AI and automation can make the biggest difference across Direct Couriers — then designing, building, and delivering the solutions that capture that value. You will identify the key bottlenecks and development opportunities in the business, and translate them into working agents and automations that are bespoke to our systems, secure within our environment, and genuinely adopted by the teams that use them.

This is not an off-the-shelf role. Our operating environment, data, and security requirements mean solutions need to be purpose-built for Direct Couriers. You will know where, when, and how AI should be applied to fix a bottleneck — and where it should not — and you will work directly with our developers to get projects over the line where deeper engineering is required. You will report to the National Systems Development Manager.

Why should you apply?

Direct Couriers have a diverse and inclusive workforce and offer a high performance yet caring culture. We will provide ongoing training and development opportunities to help grow careers with an innovative market leader. This is a wonderful opportunity and will offer the prospect to develop, grow and provide extraordinary service to our users within a passive learning environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Identify opportunities and bottlenecks

• Work across sales, account, administration, operations, customer service, people & culture, and back-office functions to identify bottlenecks, manual processes, and development opportunities where AI and automation can deliver measurable value.

• Map and prioritise opportunities based on effort, impact, risk, and return, and maintain a clear pipeline of automation and AI initiatives.

• Engage stakeholders across the national branch network to understand real-world workflows before proposing solutions.

Design and build

• Build AI agents and automations bespoke to Direct Couriers' systems — spanning tools such as Claude and our custom platforms (including Delta).

• Design solutions that are secure within our environment, avoiding off-the-shelf approaches that would compromise data security or fail to integrate with our systems.

• Prototype quickly, test with real users, iterate, and move solutions from concept to production.

Deliver with the development team

• Work directly with our developers to get projects over the line where deeper engineering, integration, or infrastructure work is required.

• Define requirements, scope solutions, and coordinate delivery so automations are robust, maintainable, and fit the wider technology roadmap.

Embed, measure, and scale

• Drive adoption through training, documentation, and change support so automations are used and trusted, not shelved.

• Define success metrics for each initiative and measure realised impact - time saved, error reduction, cost, service quality.

• Establish sensible standards and guardrails for how AI is built and used across the business, including data privacy, security, and responsible use.

What You'll Bring

• Proven delivery - Demonstrated experience delivering AI and automation solutions that created real business impact - ideally in a fast-moving operational environment.

• Practical AI judgement - The judgement to know where, when, and how AI will (and won't) fix a bottleneck, and the commercial sense to prioritise accordingly.

• Builder mindset - Hands-on capability with automation and agent tooling (e.g. n8n, Claude / LLM-based agents) and comfort integrating with custom and internal systems.

• Technical fluency - Enough technical depth to design solutions, scope requirements, and work shoulder-to-shoulder with developers to deliver bespoke, secure builds.

• Security awareness - Awareness of data privacy and security considerations (including Australian privacy requirements) and a bias toward secure-by-design solutions.

• Communication - Ability to translate between operational teams and technical delivery, influence stakeholders, and drive adoption across a national business.

• Self-starter - Comfortable operating with ambiguity, moving fast, and owning outcomes end to end.

Highly Regarded

• Experience in courier, logistics, transport, or other operationally complex industries.

• Familiarity with courier, road freight, or last-mile operations.

• Software development background or the ability to build and ship code where required.

• Experience standing up AI governance, security, or responsible-use frameworks.

This is a rare opportunity to shape how AI is applied across an established, growing national business — with executive sponsorship, real problems to solve, and the freedom to build. You'll have visible impact from day one, work directly with leadership and our development team, and help define what an AI-enabled Direct Couriers looks like.

If you would like to join a growing company that values their staff and offers a challenging and dynamic position, then click on 'apply now' and forward your application today!