Lead Architect

Lead Architect, Forward Deployed Engineer (Cogentiq)It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they are doing!We're committed to bringing passion and customer focus to the business.Fractal is a strategic AI partner to Fortune 500 companies with a vision to power every human decision in the enterprise. Fractal is building a world where individual choices, freedom, and diversity are the greatest assets. An ecosystem where human imagination is at the heart of every decision. Where no possibility is written off, only challenged to get better. We believe that a true Fractalite is the one who empowers imagination with intelligence. Fractal has been featured as a Great Place to Work by The Economic Times in partnership with the Great Place to Work® Institute and recognized as a 'Cool Vendor' and a 'Vendor to Watch' by Gartner.Location: New York, NYNote: This position is not eligible for Immigration Sponsorship at this time.About Cogentiq:Cogentiq is Fractal's Enterprise AI platform that enables organizations to build, deploy, and govern intelligent AI agents grounded in enterprise context. By connecting AI with enterprise knowledge, business systems, and workflows, Cogentiq empowers enterprises to solve complex business problems with trustworthy, scalable, and production-ready AI.Position Overview: We are looking for Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) to join the founding Cogentiq team. As an FDE, you will work at the intersection of software engineering, AI, enterprise integration, and customer success. You will partner closely with enterprise customers to understand their business challenges, design AI-powered solutions, build production-grade integrations, and deploy Cogentiq into complex enterprise environments. Beyond customer implementations, you'll help shape the evolution of the Cogentiq platform by transforming deployment learnings into reusable platform capabilities, connectors, and best practices.This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy solving ambiguous, real-world problems, thrive in fast-paced environments, and are excited to build the next generation of Enterprise AI.Responsibilities:Design and develop production-grade AI applications using the Cogentiq platform.Deploy enterprise AI solutions from proof of concept to production.Build integrations with enterprise applications such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Snowflake, Databricks, and other business systems.Develop reusable connectors, APIs, SDKs, MCP servers, and automation components.Design secure, scalable, cloud-native architectures and build reliable backend services and microservices.Collaborate directly with customer engineering and business teams to understand requirements, conduct technical workshops, and deliver successful AI solutions.Troubleshoot production deployments, optimize system performance, and ensure reliability and security.Capture learnings from customer deployments and contribute reusable capabilities back to the Cogentiq platform.Work closely with AI engineers, platform engineers, product managers, and solution architects to continuously improve the platform.Qualifications:Strong Software Engineering fundamentalsExperience in building production-grade backend applications, REST APIs, microservices, and distributed systemsProficient in working with databases, Git, and modern software development practices.Proficient in PythonExperience in Java or TypeScript being a plus.AI EngineeringHands-on experience building AI-powered applications using Large Language Models (LLMs), Agentic AI frameworks, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), tool calling, prompt engineering, and AI evaluation techniques.Experience with the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and modern AI orchestration frameworks is highly desirable.Enterprise IntegrationExperience integrating enterprise applications and platforms such as SAP, Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Snowflake, Databricks, and other business systems.Experience with enterprise integration patterns, API-first architectures, authentication mechanisms such as OAuth, JWT, and SAML, and are proficient working with SQL, REST, and GraphQL APIs.Cloud & Platform EngineeringExperience building and deploying cloud-native applications on Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud using Docker and Kubernetes.Experience with CI/CD pipelines, event-driven architectures, messaging platforms, observability, monitoring, and security best practices required to build reliable enterprise platforms.Customer & Product MindsetExperience working directly with customers, understanding their business challenges and translating them into elegant technical solutions.Communicating effectively with both technical and business stakeholders and are comfortable leading architecture discussions and technical workshops and thrive in environments where requirements evolve rapidly.Experience in ownership of outcomes, learn quickly, prototype rapidly, and continuously look for opportunities to transform customer-specific solutions into reusable platform capabilities.Why Join Cogentiq?Join the founding engineering team building Fractal's flagship Enterprise AI platform.Work on cutting-edge technologies including Generative AI, Agentic AI, Enterprise Context, Model Context Protocol (MCP), Knowledge Graphs, and AI Governance.Solve complex enterprise challenges for some of the world's leading organizations.Influence both customer success and the future direction of the Cogentiq platform.Build reusable capabilities that will power enterprise AI deployments across industries.Collaborate with a team passionate about redefining how enterprises adopt and scale AI.Our Ideal Candidate:We're looking for engineers who enjoy solving real customer problems, not just implementing predefined tickets. You should be equally comfortable writing production-grade code, designing enterprise integrations, collaborating with customer teams, and shaping the future of the Cogentiq platform. If you're excited about building enterprise-grade AI systems that create meaningful business impact, we'd love to hear from you.Pay: The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. At Fractal, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is: Up to $185,000. In addition, you may be eligible for a discretionary bonus for the current performance period.Benefits: As a full-time employee of the company or as an hourly employee working more than 30 hours per week, you will be eligible to participate in the health, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability plans in accordance with the plan documents, which may be amended from time to time. You will be eligible for benefits on the first day of employment with the Company. In addition, you are eligible to participate in the Company 401(k) Plan after 30 days of employment, in accordance with the applicable plan terms. The Company provides for 11 paid holidays and 12 weeks of Parental Leave. We also follow a "free time" PTO policy, allowing you the flexibility to take the time needed for either sick time or vacation.Fractal provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us! Fractal, Inc.