Software Engineer (First Hire) - London or Cambridge

Brands lack structured data on how their products fit real customers, making fit one of the least understood and most costly problems in fashion.

Alterdd is building the fit intelligence layer for fashion, helping brands understand how their products fit and enabling them to sell clothes that fit correctly the first time.

We're looking for a Lead Engineer to take ownership of building our technology from prototype to production.

This role is perfect for a Senior Engineer ready to transition into a Lead position. You might not have formal experience as a Lead yet, but if you are ambitious and looking for the right opportunity to earn that title, joining Alterdd as our first hire will give you the autonomy and hands-on experience to make that jump while building our systems from the ground up.

The Role

You will work directly with the founder to turn early prototypes into scalable, production-ready systems used by fashion brands.

As our first technical hire, you will define how we build. You will own the execution and development of Alterdd's technology, while the founder sets product direction and priorities.

A key part of this role is integrating Alterdd into brand environments, working across different e-commerce systems (e.g. Shopify, custom stacks), product data structures, and real-world retail workflows.

You will be responsible for building the infrastructure behind our fit engine, data systems, and brand-facing tools.

You will also have the opportunity to work closely with Alterdd's technical advisors, gaining mentorship as you build and scale the product.

What You'll Do

• Take ownership of engineering and product execution from prototype to production

• Design and build scalable systems across frontend, backend, and data layers

• Build and manage integrations with retail and e-commerce platforms, embedding Alterdd's technology into product pages, discovery flows, and checkout journeys

• Work with inconsistent product and sizing data across brands, designing systems that can handle variation and scale reliably

• Build and optimise data pipelines that ingest and process product feeds, fit data, and user inputs

• Develop database infrastructure to support body, product, and fit data

• Build dashboards and tools that surface fit insights at a SKU level

• Work closely with the founder to translate product ideas into working systems

• Establish best practices for how we build, structure, and ship, Fast-tracked leadership: We don't require prior experience as a Lead Engineer. This is an active opportunity for a driven Senior Engineer to step up, define the engineering culture, and gain invaluable leadership experience in a fast-paced startup environment.

• You will be the first engineer, with full ownership of how the product is built

• You will work directly with the founder, with no layers between idea and execution

• Your work will go live quickly and directly impact customers and brands

• You will be building a new category of data connecting body shape, product design, and fit

Working Style

• Hands-on, execution-focused, and proactive

• Thrives in early-stage, fast-moving environments

• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and evolving requirements

3-6 years experience building and shipping production software

• Experience working in early-stage or fast-moving environments

• Strong product mindset - comfortable working from ambiguous requirements

• Able to take initiative and make decisions without waiting for direction

• Experience building full-stack applications (e.g. TypeScript, React, Node, Python or similar)

• Strong understanding of databases and data modelling (ideally PostgreSQL)

• Experience building integrations with third-party systems, ideally within e-commerce, marketplaces, or product-led environments

Bonus (Not Required)

• Experience working with Shopify, headless commerce, or custom e-commerce stacks

• Experience handling product feeds, catalog data, or recommendation systems

• Experience with data pipelines, analytics, or dashboarding

• Familiarity with Supabase or similar tools

• Interest in fashion, e-commerce, or recommendation systems

£60,000 salary

• Meaningful early-stage equity (EMI options)

• Opportunity to grow with the company as the engineering function develops starting as our Lead Engineer, with the potential to build and eventually manage a team as we scale

• Holiday: 25 days + bank holidays