Founding Forward Deployed Engineer
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- New York, New York, United States; Chicago, Illinois, United States
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- 3+ years
- Category
- Solutions engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- • 3 to 5 years of hands-on software engineering or forward-deployed engineering experience.
- • A track record leading technical deployments from discovery through production and adoption.
- • Strong full-stack engineering, systems architecture, and data-pipeline fundamentals.
- • Experience building with LLMs, applied machine learning, or AI workflow systems.
- • Ability to work directly with C-level customers and translate ambiguous operational needs into shipped products.
- • Founder-minded ownership, autonomy, and comfort operating without extensive structure.
- • Willingness to travel frequently to customer sites.
Nice to have
- • Experience productizing patterns across multiple deployments or customers.
- • Experience with vertical SaaS, enterprise software, or portfolio-company environments.
- • Familiarity with ontology-driven platforms or centralized enterprise data models.
- • Experience helping build an engineering team or new technical function.
- Location and work model
- • Full-time role based in New York City or Chicago.
- • Five days per week in the office, with frequent customer travel.
- • Candidates must already be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.
Full description
About the company
Our client is an AI-first permanent-capital software group that acquires mission-critical vertical SaaS companies and operates them for the long term. The company has raised more than $50M, acquired eight businesses in under two years, and is building a shared applied-AI platform across its portfolio. Distribution, executive sponsorship, customer relationships, and deployment budgets are already in place.
The role and why it matters
This is a founding Forward Deployed Engineer role with direct access to the co-founders and Head of AI. You will build and deploy applied-AI products across multiple vertical software companies, identify repeatable patterns, and turn successful deployments into reusable platform capabilities.
What you'll do
- Run discovery with executives and operators, translate business problems into product specifications, and build AI workflows from scratch.
- Own full deployment lifecycles from zero-to-one implementation through customer adoption.
- Work on-site with customer decision-makers and technical teams across portfolio companies.
- Build shared data models, ontologies, and workflow infrastructure that connect deployments into reusable vertical products.
- Partner directly with the co-founders, Head of AI, and portfolio CTO to define and execute the applied-AI strategy.
- Help establish the Forward Deployed Engineering pod, operating model, and technical standards.
Requirements
What we're looking for
- 3 to 5 years of hands-on software engineering or forward-deployed engineering experience.
- A track record leading technical deployments from discovery through production and adoption.
- Strong full-stack engineering, systems architecture, and data-pipeline fundamentals.
- Experience building with LLMs, applied machine learning, or AI workflow systems.
- Ability to work directly with C-level customers and translate ambiguous operational needs into shipped products.
- Founder-minded ownership, autonomy, and comfort operating without extensive structure.
- Willingness to travel frequently to customer sites.
Bonus points
- Experience productizing patterns across multiple deployments or customers.
- Experience with vertical SaaS, enterprise software, or portfolio-company environments.
- Familiarity with ontology-driven platforms or centralized enterprise data models.