Senior Forward Deployed Strategist

Senior Forward Deployed Strategist @ Varick Agents

ABOUT VARICK:

Varick builds AI agents that take over real operational workflows inside the world's largest enterprises. Our forward-deployed engineers and strategists embed with client teams to map how work gets done and build POCs, then our engineers bring those agents into production. We're venture-backed, revenue-generating from day one, and already in production inside several of these companies. You'll join an elite team from Meta, AWS Bedrock, Citadel Securities, McKinsey, BCG, Stanford, and more.

ABOUT THE ROLE:

Forward Deployed Strategists are the client-facing operators at Varick. You embed with enterprise stakeholders ranging from C-suite to operators on the ground. You run discovery with process leads, diagnose where the operation actually breaks, and own the engagement from the first conversation to the agent running in production.

This is a role for people who communicate clearly, think like operators, and reason like investors. You sit across the table from a CFO and a junior controller, map how the process actually runs (not merely how the documentation says it does), and turn that into a clear business case and a brief our engineers can build against. You don't need to write the code. You need to know what to build, why it matters, and how to land it with the client.

You also need to be the person to bring the stakeholders along. You will co-create KPIs with leadership, shape how process owners will work alongside the agents, and plan and execute change management initiatives.

You will learn AI here by doing it, not by osmosis. You'll work side by side with our engineers on live deployments, scope agents yourself, and use the same AI-native toolkit we use to run the company. There is an enormous difference between reading about agents and running them inside a Fortune 500 team. This role lives in that difference.

WHAT YOU'LL DO:

Embed with client teams across departments (from finance, sales, and IT to marketing, HR, and operations) to map how work gets done, step by step and system by system. Go beyond the golden path. Find the exceptions, the workarounds, and the impact of handoffs across teams

Run discovery engagements with real rigor: stakeholder interviews, process mapping, hypothesis-driven analysis, and executive readouts

Build the business case. Size the opportunity, model the value, and prioritize which workflows to automate first based on where the dollars and the hours actually are

Translate ambiguous business problems into well-framed agent briefs with clear success criteria, guardrails, and a definition of done that our engineers can build against

Co-create KPIs with clients, baseline them before go-live, and own the story of post-deployment uplift

Drive adoption: train the client's team, sit with the users, watch what they actually do, and feed what you see back into the next iteration

Present findings, recommendations, and results directly to C-suite stakeholders, and defend them under pressure. Top tier communication is a requirement for this role. If you don't have what it takes to command a room of the world's largest executives, you are not a good fit for this role

Codify what works into Varick's playbooks, frameworks, and broader toolkit. Share field signal with our product and engineering teams: where the agents create value, where they fall short, and what clients will need next

Build and leverage relationships with existing Varick clients to help them identify their biggest opportunities for additional AI transformation, whether that's more agentic initiatives within the same department or an expansion to a new department within the same org

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR:

The role combines 3 skillsets that are rare to find in 1 individual, and you need to be one of the best across all three: 1) Communication, 2) Analysis, and 3) Commercial judgment. The list below highlights tactical examples of how you can show your experience across these.

A track record of solving hard, ambiguous problems for senior stakeholders and seeing the result through, whether you got there as a banker, a private equity investor, a consultant, a BizOps or strategy lead, or a founder. We care more about what you've owned and delivered than where you trained

Communication and client presence. You can hold a room of executives, push back on a CFO without losing them, and tailor your depth to the audience. You communicate clearly and effectively, both async and sync, to any audience. You can explain topics at different altitude levels and switch between them effortlessly

Analytical with an extreme learning gradient. You have the rigor to put well-documented, well-researched answers in front of clients and colleagues. You can model a business, pressure-test a number, and pick up a new industry or workflow almost instantly, whether a client is walking you through it in an interview or you're teaching yourself over a weekend

Strong commercial sense. You understand where the value is, who's paying for it, and what a successful engagement looks like from the client's side of the table

AI-curious and AI-fluent. You use AI tools every day, you follow the space closely, and you have a point of view on where agents work, where they don't, and what's coming next. You don't need to be an engineer, but you want to go deep, and you can communicate clearly with engineers about what to build

HELPFUL EXPERIENCE:

Investment Banking (ideally IBD) at a top-tier bank such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, or Citi, specifically M&A, ECM, DCM, or LevFin

Private Equity on the investment team (analyst or associate) at a top-tier fund such as Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, Carlyle, or TPG

Top-tier strategy consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain), especially with a digital, AI, or operations focus

BizOps, Chief of Staff, or corporate strategy at a high-growth startup or mid-size tech company

Deployment Strategist at a top-tier AI company

Founder or early employee at a startup that sold into the enterprise

Transformation or operations leadership inside a large enterprise, in finance, ops, or strategy functions at a Fortune 500

CULTURE:

Extreme ownership. You own the tasks end-to-end, at an extreme level. You think beyond the task at hand, consider upstream and downstream impact, and are accountable for the entire outcome

An instinctual sense of urgency. You thrive in and help foster an environment with urgency. When a new client request comes in, it is instinctually clear to you how that fits into the existing prioritization list. If it goes to the top of the list, you jump on it immediately, help the rest of the team realize the shift, and consider any impact of de-prioritizing other items

Low ego, high agency. We are all on this rocket ship together. If you win, the team wins and vice versa. You don't wait for permission to pursue a task. If you can do something that moves the needle, do it

Curious. Our work requires deep curiosity, both when it comes to understanding the clients' work and what matters to them, and when it comes to keeping up with and adopting the latest AI developments. Examples to showcase this could be pursuing niche interests, reading textbooks on the weekend, questioning the latest research, etc.

Perfectionist. You must be proud of your work product. In a client-facing business, it is critical that we put correct, well-informed, and well-documented material in front of the client. We are held to the highest standards and embody that mindset internally within Varick too

Startup mindset. Things are ambiguous. The hours are long. Weekend work is expected. And this excites you. With AI, the world is moving extremely quickly, and the ways of working are changing every day. We are at the forefront and help facilitate this rapid change. In the next 3, 5, and 10 years, things are going to change s