AI Builder / Forward Deployed Engineer

Position Overview

Sagard is on a journey to become an AI-first organization. The AI Builder / Forward Deployed Engineer will work closely with business teams across investment, finance, compliance and operations to identify high-value opportunities and build practical AI-enabled solutions.

Responsibilities

• Partner with business units across investment, finance, compliance and operations to understand operational problems, scope technical solutions, and rapidly prototype and iterate based on real-world feedback.
• Design and build data pipelines that move, transform, and prepare data from internal systems for use in AI and analytics workflows.
• Own end-to-end integrations between internal platforms and third-party APIs, including authentication, error handling, and ongoing maintenance.
• Contribute to foundational infrastructure decisions -- data storage, service architecture, deployment patterns -- as the firm's data and AI platform matures.
• Build and deploy production-ready AI applications, including RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, and LLM integrations, with a pragmatic eye toward what actually works at scale.
• Ensure solutions meet production standards for security, access controls, responsible AI usage, and ongoing maintainability.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2-5 years of experience in software engineering roles, with demonstrated ownership of production systems end-to-end.
• Strong full-stack engineering fundamentals -- backend services, relational and document databases, REST and webhook integrations, async patterns, and cloud deployment.
• Hands-on experience building and maintaining data pipelines and system integrations in production environments, not just application-layer prototypes.
• Practical experience with LLM-based systems in production -- including RAG pipelines, agentic workflows, and LLM integrations -- and sound judgment on when AI adds value over conventional approaches.
• Curious, self-directed, and biased toward action -- able to work directly with non-technical stakeholders, move fast in ambiguous situations, and drive problems to resolution without heavy oversight.

Preferred

• Experience in financial services or alternative asset management, familiarity with structured financial data and compliance constraints.

Compensation Range

USD$75,000 to USD$90,000