Forward Deployed Engineer

Sequence Holdings; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Sequence Holdings seeks Forward Deployed Engineers to transform operating companies with AI. You translate human knowledge work into AI compute, building production systems used daily in real businesses.

Youll lead end-to-end transformations inside portfolio companies from discovery to deployment, collaborating with operators, investors and management to scale impact across Sequence platform. Travel to on-site deployments is expected; compensation ranges reflect senior responsibilities.

Qualifications

• Customer obsession demonstrated by direct work with users.
• Proven track record of impressive accomplishments (academic, professional, or entrepreneurial).
• Operate in ambiguity and figure out what to build first by talking to people.
• Raw horsepower and tenacity to deliver results.
• Proven ability to build from 0 to 1.
• Strong communicator who can explain a technical architecture to a CEO and translate operator frustration into system design.
• Willing to travel to operating companies and be on-site for meaningful stretches.

Responsibilities

• End-to-end AI transformations inside operating companies: discovery, scoping, building, shipping, and iterating until measurable impact.
• Production agentic systems—tool-calling workflows, LLM-powered document processing, intelligent routing, and automated decision support.
• Enterprise integrations with legacy systems, CRMs, compliance platforms, and operational software with data constraints.
• Reusable platform primitives for faster future transformations across the portfolio.
• Direct collaboration with management teams, front-line operators, and business leadership to earn trust.

Job description

About Sequence

Our mission is to own, transform, and operate the companies that will define the American service economy.

About Sequence

Our mission is to own, transform, and operate the companies that will define the American service economy.

AI will reshape every industry. But its deepest impact won't come from better models - it will come from transforming how real businesses serve real customers. Faster decisions. Personal service at scale. Better outcomes for the people who depend on these institutions every day. We believe this is the defining opportunity of our generation.

The traditional playbook can't capture it. SaaS companies expect every business to conform to their product. Consultants scope to an engagement and leave. Neither has the access, context, or incentive to reach the root of how a business actually operates. That requires ownership.

Sequence was built to close that gap. We are a permanent holding company - a home for great businesses and the exceptional people who run them. We take meaningful stakes, embed our technology and engineering team, and work alongside management to rewire operations from the inside. Not as a vendor. Not on a timeline. As owners.

We've raised $75M - our seed round led by Conviction and 8VC, and our Series A led by Lux Capital - joined by Definition Capital, Chris Ré (Factory), and other leading institutional partners.

About The Role

Forward Deployed Engineers are the tip of the spear at Sequence. You'll walk into an operating company and within weeks, you'll understand how the business works better than most people who've been there for years. Then you'll rebuild it.

Your job is to translate human knowledge work into AI compute. The operator who spends three hours reviewing documents before making a decision. The sales team that maintains a pipeline in their heads because the tools don't work in the field. The compliance team that manually checks every transaction against a spreadsheet of rules. You'll find these workflows, build AI-powered systems that transform them, and ship production software that people use daily — not demos, not pilots, real systems that run real businesses.

Every transformation you do feeds back into Sequence's core AI platform — so that services businesses start to feel like product businesses. The companies we acquire run on manual, human-intensive processes. By building reusable systems that compound across the portfolio, you make each subsequent transformation faster than the last.

As Sequence grows, the best FDEs will define and lead entire verticals, working closely with operators and investors to shape how whole industries run on Sequence's platform.

What You'll Work On

• End-to-end AI transformations inside operating companies: discovery, scoping, building, shipping, and iterating until the business impact is measurable and undeniable
• Production agentic systems — tool-calling workflows, LLM-powered document processing, intelligent routing, and automated decision support — built for reliability in regulated, high-stakes environments
• Enterprise integrations with legacy systems, CRMs, compliance platforms, and operational software that was never designed for automation — including the auth, permissions, and data constraints that come with it
• Reusable platform primitives that make the next transformation faster — data ingestion patterns, workflow orchestration, agent harnesses, and context layers that compound across the portfolio
• Direct collaboration with management teams, front-line operators, and business leadership to understand their world and earn their trust

Requirements

• Customer obsession. Has worked directly with users, changed direction based on what they learned, and genuinely cares about solving real problems for real people. This is the hardest quality to teach and the one we weight most heavily.
• Demonstrated track record of impressive accomplishments, whether academic, professional, or entrepreneurial
• Can operate in ambiguity. Comfortable walking into a business with no roadmap and figuring out what to build first by talking to people, not reading docs.
• Raw horsepower and tenacity. Will run through walls to deliver results.
• Proven ability to build from 0 to 1
• Strong communicator who can explain a technical architecture to a CEO and translate a front-line operator's frustration into a system design
• Willing to travel to operating companies — expect to be on-site at the business you're transforming for meaningful stretches

Our Values

• Earned Luck. We do not control markets, competition, timing, or chance. We control whether we are ready when they turn our way. Effort and preparation are the only variables entirely up to us, and we leave nothing on the table. Do the work before it is needed, at the highest standard. We are a small team going after massive opportunities: outwork everyone.
• Ownership. You are an owner of Sequence. Act like it. Treat our spaces and our money as your own; they are. Take pride in the work you ship. No task is beneath you, no detail too small. The small things compound.
• Long-Term Thinking. We are a permanent holding company: no fund clock, no exit to manage toward. That structure only works if we think the same way. Hold direction through good cycles and bad. Pay the short-term tax on the investments that compound. Always ask: what puts us on the steepest slope three years from now?
• Intellectual Honesty. The best idea wins, regardless of who says it. Debate openly; push back regardless of hierarchy. Share credit generously; take responsibility collectively. When we are wrong, we say so immediately, extract the lesson, and move on. Concealing mistakes is unacceptable.
• Customer-Centric. We have two customers: our portfolio companies, and the customers they serve. We succeed only when our customer's customer does. Our job is to make our operating companies better at serving theirs.
• Stewardship. We inherit decades of someone else's work and trust. Respect it, understand it, then build on it. The goal is to make it the best it has ever been.
• Integrity. Our currency is trust. Everything we want comes through reputation: the next deal, the next hire, the next capital partner. Do the right thing, especially when no one is watching; reputation compounds faster than revenue and cannot be rebought.

Compensation Range: $200K - $300K