Forward Deployed Engineer - Data & AI Transformation

Forward Deployed Engineer

New York, NY | In-office in Manhattan

Compensation: $160K to $200K base + 0.25% to 0.75% equity

Experience: 3+ years

Visa: US citizen/visa only

Shields Group Search is partnering with a rapidly growing data and AI transformation partner to private equity-backed portfolio companies to hire a Forward Deployed Engineer.

This is a highly hands-on, client-facing engineering role for someone who wants to build and ship real software quickly, work directly with operators and executives, and take ownership from ambiguous problem through production deployment.

About the Company

Our client is a data transformation partner to the largest private equity-backed portfolio companies. They help solve major data ingestion and migration problems, including unifying messy data after M&A, turning documents into clean structured data, replacing spreadsheet workflows with real software, and keeping CRM and financial data in sync across systems.

Their engineers embed inside customer organizations, ship a working prototype in 48 hours, and have production software live in about four weeks.

More than 70% of the top 20 funds are already customers. The company works with investment firms themselves and the portfolio companies they own, providing a direct line into hundreds of companies.

What You Would Build

Custom apps, data pipelines, integrations, and AI agents focused on the problems every portfolio company has:

• Post-M&A data migration: Unify messy contract, customer, and financial data after an acquisition into one source of truth.
• Document and data pipelines: Turn documents and systems of record into structured, cited output that downstream teams can trust.
• Custom operational apps: Replace paper, binder, and spreadsheet workflows with software the team actually runs on.
• Revenue and CRM operations: Clean pipeline data, automate renewals and pricing, and keep customer records in sync across systems.
• System integration and AI agents: Pipe clean data into the ERP, CRM, and warehouse, and stand up agents that handle repetitive work.

What the Job Is Actually Like

• Embed with a portfolio company: Sit with the people doing the work, learn how the business runs, and find the problem worth solving.
• Prototype fast: Get to a working prototype in 48 hours, not a slide deck.
• Ship to production: Take it from prototype to live software in about four weeks, running on real customer data.
• Own the outcome: Stay on the hook until it works and creates value, then hand over software the company owns.
• Move across the portfolio: Carry what you build from one company to the next so each engagement is faster than the last.
• Be the face of the company on site: Work directly with founders, operators, and private equity deal and value-creation teams.

Who You Are

• Experienced builder: 4+ years building and shipping production software, with real ownership of outcomes.
• Strong and fast: Python, SQL, APIs, and data pipelines. Comfortable building with LLMs, including RAG, evals, prompting, and agents.

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• Full-stack enough to ship: You can put a usable app in front of a non-technical team, not just build a backend.
• Strong judgment: You can diagnose an ambiguous business problem, talk to operators and executives, and decide what is worth building.
• High agency: You are comfortable going onsite, navigating a messy company, and making things work without waiting for a detailed spec.
• NYC-based and happy to travel to customer sites.
• The company sponsors any and all visas necessary for work.

Interview Process

• 3 to 4 conversations with founders and team members.
• A paid work trial where you will work on a real company problem and be paid for your time. This is mutual diligence on how you diagnose, scope, and build against minimal instructions.
• Dinner, lunch, or coffee with the team before any decision.
• The process can move from first call to decision in about one week for the right person.