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Junior AI Approval Workflow Bottleneck Detector

Mason Oliveira

Freelance · Job · Chicago

About the role

Approval workflows are where business processes go to slow down. A purchase order that needs four sequential approvals from managers who are each responsible for 200 items in their queue has a theoretical SLA of 2 days and an average actual cycle time of 12. The delay isn't in the work — it's in the queue time at each approval step. Identifying which approvers are consistently the bottleneck, which approval steps have the longest wait times, and which approval types could safely be auto-approved based on risk profile is the analysis that drives workflow redesign. We automate business workflows for 60 enterprise clients. Approval workflow analytics is a new product capability. We process 2.4 million approval requests per year — we have the event log data. What we haven't built is the bottleneck analytics layer that turns approval event logs into actionable process improvement intelligence. This is a freelance role — 15-20 hours per week. You'll build the event log processing and bottleneck analysis pipelines under senior engineer guidance: cycle time computation at each approval step, approver queue depth tracking, and the bottleneck scoring that identifies which steps and approvers are driving the most delay relative to SLA.

Responsibilities

  • Build approval event log ingestion and cycle time computation for each approval step in configured workflows
  • Implement approver queue depth tracking identifying approval backlogs by individual and team
  • Develop bottleneck scoring ranking approval steps and approvers by SLA deviation contribution
  • Create approval pattern analysis identifying request types that are auto-approved at high rates by all approvers
  • Build bottleneck reporting dashboard for process improvement teams to prioritize workflow redesign
  • Maintain pipeline as new workflow types and approval configurations are added

Requirements

  • 1+ year of Python and SQL development experience
  • Basic familiarity with business process analysis or workflow data
  • Interest in workflow automation, operations analytics, or enterprise software
  • Attention to event log accuracy and cycle time calculation correctness
  • Reliable async communication for a freelance engagement

Benefits

  • Fully remote freelance — 15-20 hours per week
  • Flexible schedule
  • Competitive hourly rate
  • Exposure to enterprise workflow intelligence
  • Potential to grow scope

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Categories

Automation & AI Workflows AI Business, Marketing & Strategy

Skills

python sql pandas statistics openai api

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Job Type

Freelance

Level

Junior

Language

English

Salary Range

Under $60k / year

AI Expertise

Automation & AI Workflows AI Business, Marketing & Strategy

Skills

python sql pandas statistics openai api

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