Founding Engineer

About Forgepoint

Revitalize an industry. Rebuild America’s manufacturing backbone.

America’s $3 trillion manufacturing base is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It’s also one of the most overlooked when it comes to software.

America builds satellites, jet engines, machine tooling, and semiconductors with precision measured in microns, but the software systems running our factories are decades out of date.

Walk into any factory office in America and you’ll see it: estimators toggling between ten spreadsheets, procurement managers forwarding PDFs, and accountants retyping invoices by hand. The machines on the shop floor are state-of-the-art, but the computers in the office are running on excel, email, and prayers.

Our co-founder Jack saw it firsthand at Northrop Grumman, at Bain & Co, and at the dozens of aerospace manufacturers that he’s purchased from. Behind every great American product is a mountain of manual work that bottlenecks production and holds back growth.

This inefficiency doesn’t just slow the manufacturer down. It slows down our entire economy. It means fewer products get built and longer lead times for the ones that do. Worst of all: even customers who want to buy American often have no choice but to buy from overseas competitors who can move faster.

But now, for the first time, there’s a way to fix it.

At Forgepoint, we’re building AI workers that automate the manufacturing back office. Our AI workers handle critical but time consuming jobs like quoting, purchasing, invoicing, and sales coordination. Our AI workers eliminate the bottlenecks that have held manufacturers back for decades, turning processes that once took weeks into minutes.

This is about more than software. It’s about revitalizing the infrastructure that builds everything else. It’s about equipping US manufacturers with the best software in the world so they can focus on what they do best: making great products.

We’re backed by top-tier investors like a16z speedrun, and angels from Brex, Xwing, and Betterment, and already have more customer demand than we can serve.

The market is vast, the mission is urgent, and the opportunity is generational.

Join us as we rebuild the digital foundation of American manufacturing — and create a billion-dollar company in the process.

Our Team

Jack Strauss — Co‑Founder & CEO

Jack began his career working for some of the largest OEMs in the world, including Acer Computers and Northrop Grumman. He later joined Bain & Co’s manufacturing practice where he advised Fortune 500 industrial firms, primarily in the semiconductor and aerospace sectors. Jack then joined Xwing, an early stage startup developing an AI aircraft pilot, where he served as Chief of Staff as the company scaled from 25 to 150 employees in 18 months. Jack ultimately led Xwing’s entire GTM function, selling into the US military and aircraft OEMs before the company’s acquisition by Joby Aviation. Jack holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a BA in Chinese Studies from the University of Southern California. Jack is fluent in Mandarin and is an avid backpacker and spearfisher.

Alex Pareto — Co‑Founder & CTO

Alex began his career at Meta, just before founding Demeanor, a YC backed startup building tools for creators. Demeanor was later acquired by NTWRK / Complex, where he joined on as the Director of Engineering and built out their initial EPD team. After NTWRK, Alex joined Brex as a founding engineer on the Spend Management team. He grew with the product and was ultimately tapped to be Head of Engineering for the entire 40 person Spend Management engineering team. Alex holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and is an avid skier & snowboarder.

How we work

• In person, every day in NYC — high bandwidth collaboration and an energy you can feel

• Talk to users constantly — We build with manufacturers, not for them

• Extreme ownership — We take full responsibility for outcomes. Own problems end-to-end and drive solutions without waiting for permission

If you’re driven, low‑ego, and excited to rebuild the digital backbone of American manufacturing, you’ll do the best work of your career here.

Our Values

• Go Big — Set goals that make us uncomfortable and to fundamentally change the industry.

• Serve the Builders — Put manufacturers first. We exist to help them thrive.

• AI First, End to End — Treat AI as the default interface for everything. Thread it through every workflow for us and our customers.

• Play the Long Game — Make choices that compound. Optimize for durability, trust, and resilience with our customers, our partners, and our team.

• Learn Loud and Fast — Seek feedback, iterate quickly, and turn setbacks into forward motion.

• Urgent and Excellent — Move fast without breaking craft. Balance pace with quality and sustainability.

The Role

This is a true 0→1 role. Join at the ground floor and help define both the product and the company. We’re at the cutting edge of applied AI - building agents that feel magical to our users while accelerating every aspect of their business.

You’ll ship core AI features across the stack, invent new products to deliver value for our customers, and architect scalable and beautiful software. Expect hands‑on work with LLMs every day, rapid prototyping, and tight feedback loops with real users.

You’ll also tackle challenging engineering problems: scaling distributed services, integrating with messy legacy ERPs and CRMs, and building flexible interfaces that adapt to edge cases instead of breaking on them.

Our tech stack is TypeScript end‑to‑end (React + NodeJS) with PostgreSQL. It lets us move quickly without sacrificing craft. We value simplicity, speed, and maintainable software.

Beyond code, you’ll help shape company strategy, meet customers on the shop floor, and raise the bar for culture and execution. If you like ownership, pace, and building things that matter, you’ll thrive here.

Who you are

• You have 2-8+ years experience as a product software engineer

• You care about our mission, and you want to see the American manufacturing base get stronger.

• You own your features end-to-end, from product requirements, code, testing, observability, rollout, and maintenance.

• You enjoy working independently and owning your own outcomes; you also love working through tough problems with great team.

• You’re excited to work in person 5 days a week in our NYC office

• You're constantly experimenting with new AI and LLM tools. You love optimizing workflows to get maximum leverage from these technologies.

• You have a Founder mindset. You appreciate ambiguity, want latitude to make important decisions, and have a deep love for building.

• You operate with a growth mindset, and you are a fast learner.

Bonus Points

• Prior experience with our tech stack: Typescript / NodeJS / React

• Prior experience with designing, implementing, and operating distributed systems: queuing and streaming mechanisms, consistency guarantees, robust design around reliability concerns (retries, caching, etc.)

• Prior experience with integrating and deploying a large number of third party API integrations

• Prior experience with industry standard LLM APIs and concepts

Comp & Benefits

• Top tier salary & equity

• Great healthcare + gym stipend

• Covered lunch + dinner at the office

• Unlimited Celsius

• Travel across the entire USA: we value in-person collaboration with our customers and spend a lot of time on their shop floors