Founding Engineer

This is a senior, high-trust engineering role for someone who wants to build core systems properly, not inherit legacy or operate inside rigid delivery structures.

You'll be joining a small, engineering-led team at an early stage, working on a greenfield platform with long-term technical ambition. The focus is on building reliable, scalable software that will sit at the heart of a complex product.

This is not consultancy work and not feature factory delivery. You'll have genuine ownership over how systems are designed, built, and evolved.

What you'll be doing

• Designing and building core backend services and APIs
• Contributing to architectural decisions that underpin future scale
• Working across the full lifecycle, from problem definition to production
• Building systems that prioritise reliability, performance, and maintainability
• Collaborating closely with a small, senior team where quality matters

• Strong experience as a backend or backend-leaning full-stack engineer
• Comfortable operating in early-stage, ambiguous environments
• Experience building production systems that need to be robust and dependable
• Pragmatic engineering mindset - knows when to move fast and when to slow down
• Enjoys ownership, responsibility, and technical depth

Context

• Early-stage, product-led business
• Small, senior engineering team
• High autonomy, low bureaucracy
• Engineering decisions genuinely matter
• London fully onsite
• Uop to £120k + equity