Forward Deployed Architect / Engineer – Agentic Commerce, Identity, Trust & AI Agents

Damco Solutions is seeking a Forward Deployed Architect/Engineer to design and implement secure, scalable identity, trust, security, and commerce solutions for AI-powered agentic commerce ecosystems. The role combines hands-on engineering, solution architecture, merchant and partner collaboration, technical leadership, documentation, and delivery of production-grade AI agent, MCP, wallet, payment, and verifiable credential integrations.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and deploy trust, identity, and risk enforcement across AI-powered commerce ecosystems
• Evaluate and implement solutions using:
• Anthropic Claude Messages API
• Claude Agent SDK
• Claude Managed Agents
• MCP (Model Context Protocol)
• Build and maintain integrations across commerce agent runtimes and merchant platforms
• Stand up, validate, and maintain commerce blueprint verticals and runtime implementations
• Build agent tooling, Claude skills/plugins, and companion developer experiences
• Maintain compatibility with upstream AI agent frameworks and reference implementations
• Design and implement:
• Session identity binding
• Agent-to-merchant authentication
• Trust decision frameworks
• Approve / Deny / Step-Up workflows
• Gateway verification models
• Fail-open / fail-closed enforcement policies
• Build secure authentication mechanisms utilizing:
• OAuth 2.0
• OIDC
• JWT/JWS
• JWKS
• HTTP Message Signatures
• Signed claims
• Secrets management
• Vault-based credentials
• Implement decision logging, auditability, privacy controls, and secure outcome reporting without exposing PII
• Design and implement authenticated MCP servers
• Build and secure streamable HTTP MCP services
• Develop MCP integrations for Claude Managed Agents and external partner platforms
• Create authenticated gateway patterns for MCP access and tool execution
• Integrate external trust, fraud, identity, and risk decisioning services
• Build solutions supporting:
• Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
• Protocol-agnostic identity rails
• Wallet-based identity systems
• Loyalty identity portability
• Design and implement:
• W3C Verifiable Credential solutions
• OID4VCI and OID4VP flows
• SD-JWT credential exchange
• DID-based identity architectures
• Selective disclosure mechanisms
• Prove identity and loyalty assertions while ensuring no PII leakage to AI agents
• Design trust enforcement throughout:
• Product browsing
• Cart creation
• Checkout processes
• Payment authorization flows
• Loyalty redemption journeys
• Implement member pricing, inventory reservation, loyalty verification, and checkout identity controls
• Build secure loyalty-without-login architectures leveraging UCP and protocol-agnostic middleware approaches
• Develop edge-based trust verification solutions using:
• Cloudflare Workers
• Edge security services
• CDN-based trust enforcement patterns
• Implement:
• JWKS caching
• Header verification
• Rate limiting
• Replay protection
• Spoofed-header prevention
• Build merchant middleware and reusable integration frameworks
• Create:
• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
• Reference architectures
• Sequence diagrams
• Threat models
• Security reviews
• Technical design documents
• Conduct architecture reviews and technical workshops with merchants and external partners
• Lead end-to-end solution design discussions with ecosystem participants, including AI, commerce, payment, wallet, and identity providers
• Produce:
• Merchant integration guides
• Implementation runbooks
• API specifications
• Technical playbooks
• Demo environments
• Reference implementations
• Deliver technical demonstrations to merchants, partners, and executive stakeholders
• Measure implementation/adoption effort using engineering and business success metrics

Requirements:

• 8+ years of experience in one or more of the following:
• Solutions Architecture
• Software Architecture
• Platform Architecture
• Forward Deployed Engineering
• Backend Platform Engineering
• Recent hands-on production experience with AI Agent systems and LLM integrations
• Strong customer-facing and partner-facing experience
• Strong proficiency in:
• Python (5+ years)
• TypeScript / Node.js (5+ years)
• Deep understanding of:
• Async programming
• Distributed systems
• REST APIs
• HTTP protocols
• Event-driven architectures
• Secure API design
• Experience with:
• pytest
• typed Python
• asyncio
• Ruff
• Next.js or similar frameworks
• Hands-on expertise with:
• Anthropic Claude
• Claude Messages API
• Agent SDK
• Managed Agents
• Tool Calling
• Prompt Engineering
• Prompt Caching
• Experience building production-grade tool-using AI agents
• Deep understanding of MCP architecture and secure agent-tool interactions
• Strong experience with:
• OAuth 2.0
• OIDC
• JWT / JWS
• JWKS
• HTTP Message Signatures
• PKCE
• Token validation
• Replay prevention
• Identity federation
• Secrets management
• Privacy-by-design principles
• Hands-on experience with:
• W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0
• OID4VCI
• OID4VP
• SD-JWT VC
• DID methods (did:web, did:key)
• Wallet SDK integrations
• Selective disclosure architectures
• Experience building systems involving:
• E-commerce platforms
• Shopping carts
• Checkout systems
• Loyalty programs
• Payments and wallet ecosystems
• Fraud prevention
• Identity verification
• Risk decisioning
• Threat modeling expertise
• Secure software design practices
• Privacy-by-design implementation experience
• Ability to rapidly understand and extend unfamiliar systems and open-source frameworks
• Strong debugging, testing, and code review capabilities
• Google UCP
• OpenAI ACP
• AP2
• KYA frameworks
• AWS Bedrock
• Google Vertex AI
• Azure AI Foundry
• Knowledge of:
• BBS+
• Zero-Knowledge Proofs
• Predicate-based credential systems
• Cloudflare Workers
• Edge computing platforms
• CDN architectures
• E-commerce fraud and bot management expertise
• Previous Forward Deployed Engineer, Architect, or Solutions Consultant experience