Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer

London | Onsite

£80,000-£120,000 + equity

We’re working with an early-stage company building a next-generation AI platform to transform a large, traditional industry.

They’re looking for a Founding Engineer to take ownership of the core platform from day one and help scale it into a category-defining product.

The opportunity:

This is a true 0→1 role.

You’ll be responsible for architecting and building the core system that powers the product, working directly with the founders and shaping both the technical direction and product itself.

If you’re someone who enjoys high ownership, fast pace, and building from scratch, this is one of those rare roles where you can have a genuine impact.

What you’ll be doing:

• Designing and building the core backend systems powering AI-driven workflows
• Owning architecture across APIs, data pipelines and distributed systems
• Working on LLM orchestration and retrieval systems in production
• Building scalable, event-driven infrastructure handling real-time workloads
• Integrating with external platforms and third-party systems
• Contributing across the stack where needed

What they’re looking for:

• Strong backend engineering experience (Python preferred)
• Experience building and shipping AI / LLM-powered systems
• Solid understanding of scalable system design and distributed architectures
• Experience with data pipelines, retrieval systems or similar
• Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, early-stage environment
• Ability to take full ownership from idea → production

Nice to have:

• Experience with real-time systems or communication platforms
• Exposure to voice, messaging or streaming systems
• Previous startup or founding engineer experience

Why join:

• Early-stage, high-growth environment
• Direct impact on product and technical direction
• Large, complex market with significant upside
• Strong ownership and autonomy from day one
• Work closely with experienced founders