C&D Talent Advisory
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Founding Engineer, Infrastructure & Platform London Location: King's Cross, London Work model: On-site by default, with some flexibility Employment: Full-time Level: Mid-Senior / Founding Engineer Experience: 6+ years Estimated compensation: £130,000-£170,000 +Equity Industry: Enterprise AI / Risk Infrastructure Environment: Seed-stage, high-growth startup About the opportunity Join a seed-stage company building AI-native risk infrastructure for regulated enterprises Build systems used by customers across financial services, regulated technology, and healthcare Own both core backend services and the infrastructure foundations they run on Shape a platform where security, compliance, reliability, and enterprise trust are critical to winning customers Work directly on architecture that supports multi-year enterprise deployments Operate with founding-team levels of ownership and autonomy Partner closely with company leadership on technical direction and platform evolution What you'll own Build and own backend services across the platform Develop APIs, asynchronous workflows, and core data models Design and maintain cloud infrastructure foundations Own Infrastructure as Code using Terraform Design secure multi-tenant isolation across compute, data, and network layers Own deployment pipelines and CI/CD infrastructure Build and maintain observability systems Establish and improve production on-call practices Develop infrastructure for long-running AI agent workloads Build systems for large-scale document processing Design secure execution environments for AI tools and agents Automate compliance evidence collection Build infrastructure supporting SOC 2, ISO 27001, and similar frameworks Develop internal tooling that allows engineers to ship quickly without compromising security or reliability What we're looking for 6+ years of backend engineering experience Significant infrastructure ownership in production environments Strong professional experience with a backend programming language Strong TypeScript or Node.js experience preferred Production experience with Terraform Strong CI/CD experience Experience with containerized production workloads Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure Experience owning systems through deployment and production operations Strong security fundamentals Experience with IAM and access-control architecture Experience with network segmentation Strong understanding of secrets management Awareness of software supply-chain security Experience designing and implementing compliance controls Hands on ownership of SOC 2, ISO 27001, or comparable compliance programs Operational maturity from supporting production systems that matter Ability to balance rapid product delivery with security and reliability requirements High level of autonomy and technical ownership Particularly valuable experience Azure Azure Container Apps Azure Service Bus Azure Front Door Entra ID Multi-tenant SaaS infrastructure Compute isolation Data isolation Network isolation Audit-sensitive enterprise products GitHub Actions Docker Postgres AKS Production-grade AI infrastructure LLM platforms RAG systems Agentic workflows Secure AI tool execution High-volume document-processing systems Strong profile signals Former founder or technical founder Former CTO returning to an individual-contributor role Founding or early-stage engineering experience Strong product-engineering mindset History of owning architecture as well as implementation Experience shipping backend systems directly used by customers Startup-style production ownership Side projects or evidence of independent technical building Technical talks, open-source work, or other evidence of deep engineering interest Experience working in environments where reliability and compliance directly affect commercial outcomes Strong AI-first development mindset Comfortable using AI coding tools such as Claude Code or equivalent This role may not be the right fit if you Have primarily front-end engineering experience Lack meaningful backend or infrastructure ownership Have worked exclusively in cybersecurity without hands on product engineering Have primarily Developer Relations or Developer Experience experience Have spent your career only on internal tooling without customer facing product impact Have limited experience operating production systems Have no practical Infrastructure as Code or CI/CD experience Have only participated in compliance processes rather than designing and implementing controls Prefer highly specialized infrastructure work without broader product ownership Prefer large company structures with narrowly defined responsibilities Are not comfortable working primarily on-site in London What you'll get Founding-level technical ownership Significant influence over platform architecture Direct impact on which enterprise customers the company can support Opportunity to build secure, production grade AI infrastructure from an early stage Exposure to complex enterprise security and compliance requirements Close collaboration with company leadership Top-decile London market compensation Meaningful EMI eligible equity Strong AI tooling and API budgets Daily team lunch Specialty coffee King's Cross office with roof terrace and on site facilities High autonomy engineering environment Opportunity to build both product and infrastructure systems end-to-end
Founding Engineer, Infrastructure & Platform London Location: King's Cross, London Work model: On-site by default, with some flexibility Employment: Full-time Level: Mid-Senior / Founding Engineer Experience: 6+ years Estimated compensation: £130,000-£170,000 +Equity Industry: Enterprise AI / Risk Infrastructure Environment: Seed-stage, high-growth startup About the opportunity Join a seed-stage company building AI-native risk infrastructure for regulated enterprises Build systems used by customers across financial services, regulated technology, and healthcare Own both core backend services and the infrastructure foundations they run on Shape a platform where security, compliance, reliability, and enterprise trust are critical to winning customers Work directly on architecture that supports multi-year enterprise deployments Operate with founding-team levels of ownership and autonomy Partner closely with company leadership on technical direction and platform evolution What you'll own Build and own backend services across the platform Develop APIs, asynchronous workflows, and core data models Design and maintain cloud infrastructure foundations Own Infrastructure as Code using Terraform Design secure multi-tenant isolation across compute, data, and network layers Own deployment pipelines and CI/CD infrastructure Build and maintain observability systems Establish and improve production on-call practices Develop infrastructure for long-running AI agent workloads Build systems for large-scale document processing Design secure execution environments for AI tools and agents Automate compliance evidence collection Build infrastructure supporting SOC 2, ISO 27001, and similar frameworks Develop internal tooling that allows engineers to ship quickly without compromising security or reliability What we're looking for 6+ years of backend engineering experience Significant infrastructure ownership in production environments Strong professional experience with a backend programming language Strong TypeScript or Node.js experience preferred Production experience with Terraform Strong CI/CD experience Experience with containerized production workloads Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure Experience owning systems through deployment and production operations Strong security fundamentals Experience with IAM and access-control architecture Experience with network segmentation Strong understanding of secrets management Awareness of software supply-chain security Experience designing and implementing compliance controls Hands on ownership of SOC 2, ISO 27001, or comparable compliance programs Operational maturity from supporting production systems that matter Ability to balance rapid product delivery with security and reliability requirements High level of autonomy and technical ownership Particularly valuable experience Azure Azure Container Apps Azure Service Bus Azure Front Door Entra ID Multi-tenant SaaS infrastructure Compute isolation Data isolation Network isolation Audit-sensitive enterprise products GitHub Actions Docker Postgres AKS Production-grade AI infrastructure LLM platforms RAG systems Agentic workflows Secure AI tool execution High-volume document-processing systems Strong profile signals Former founder or technical founder Former CTO returning to an individual-contributor role Founding or early-stage engineering experience Strong product-engineering mindset History of owning architecture as well as implementation Experience shipping backend systems directly used by customers Startup-style production ownership Side projects or evidence of independent technical building Technical talks, open-source work, or other evidence of deep engineering interest Experience working in environments where reliability and compliance directly affect commercial outcomes Strong AI-first development mindset Comfortable using AI coding tools such as Claude Code or equivalent This role may not be the right fit if you Have primarily front-end engineering experience Lack meaningful backend or infrastructure ownership Have worked exclusively in cybersecurity without hands on product engineering Have primarily Developer Relations or Developer Experience experience Have spent your career only on internal tooling without customer facing product impact Have limited experience operating production systems Have no practical Infrastructure as Code or CI/CD experience Have only participated in compliance processes rather than designing and implementing controls Prefer highly specialized infrastructure work without broader product ownership Prefer large company structures with narrowly defined responsibilities Are not comfortable working primarily on-site in London What you'll get Founding-level technical ownership Significant influence over platform architecture Direct impact on which enterprise customers the company can support Opportunity to build secure, production grade AI infrastructure from an early stage Exposure to complex enterprise security and compliance requirements Close collaboration with company leadership Top-decile London market compensation Meaningful EMI eligible equity Strong AI tooling and API budgets Daily team lunch Specialty coffee King's Cross office with roof terrace and on site facilities High autonomy engineering environment Opportunity to build both product and infrastructure systems end-to-end
Oscar Technology
Founding AI Engineer Location : London (Hybrid / Flexible) Salary : Competitive DOE + Bonus + Equity Company Overview We are working with an early-stage technology company building AI-native systems that help large organisations better understand, govern, and secure complex data and identity ecosystems. Operating at the intersection of AI, cyber security, and enterprise data platforms , the business is focused on transforming how organisations model access, risk, and data relationships across increasingly distributed cloud environments. The team is small, highly technical, and product-focused, with a strong bias toward ownership, rapid iteration, and building systems that operate in complex, real-world enterprise environments. Engineering sits at the centre of everything, and individuals are expected to have a direct impact on product direction and architecture. The Role We are seeking a Founding AI Engineer / Engineering Lead to join the business at a pivotal stage as the platform moves from early MVP into scalable production use with enterprise customers. This is a hands-on technical leadership role , not a product management position. You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling core components of an AI-driven enterprise platform, working across data, machine learning, and distributed systems. You will also work directly with early customers to understand real-world use cases and translate them into robust, scalable product capabilities. This role suits someone who still enjoys building and shipping code, but is comfortable influencing architecture, mentoring engineers, and shaping technical direction. You will have significant influence over: Core system architecture AI/ML strategy and implementation Data modelling and enterprise integration patterns Early product design decisions Engineering standards and scalability approach Key Responsibilities Design and build core components of an AI-native enterprise platform from the ground up Develop and deploy machine learning and LLM-based systems in production environments Build scalable data and AI pipelines across complex enterprise datasets Work closely with early enterprise customers to refine requirements and shape product direction Define and implement system architecture for AI, data, and integration layers Build agentic AI workflows and knowledge-driven systems using modern LLM frameworks Implement robust MLOps pipelines for model training, deployment, monitoring, and governance Contribute directly to production code in Python and related AI/data tooling Support technical decision-making around cloud architecture, scalability, and system design Help establish engineering best practices in a fast-moving early-stage environment Tech Stack Python TensorFlow / PyTorch LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, or similar agentic AI tooling) AWS / Azure cloud platforms (including AI services such as Bedrock) Data engineering tools (e.g. AWS Glue or equivalent) NLP, embeddings, vector databases, RAG architectures MLOps tooling for model deployment and monitoring Experience with distributed data systems and APIs Required Skills & Experience Several years' experience in software engineering, data engineering, or AI engineering roles Strong academic background in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or similar Experience working in a product-led technology environment (SaaS, AI platform, or similar) Proven ability to ship production-grade AI or data systems Strong Python engineering capability Experience with modern ML / LLM systems and frameworks Exposure to cloud-based AI/ML platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) Comfortable working in early-stage environments with ambiguity and ownership Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with technical and non-technical stakeholders Bonus Experience (Highly Valued) Cyber security / identity / access management (IAM / IdAM) exposure Cloud operations, DevSecOps, or infrastructure-heavy environments Experience in regulated or enterprise-scale domains Knowledge of enterprise data governance, data modelling, or integration architecture How You Work Highly hands-on and enjoys building systems end-to-end Comfortable operating in ambiguity and shaping problems as well as solving them Strong bias toward delivery, iteration, and practical engineering outcomes Collaborative, but able to take full ownership of technical decisions Interested in building foundational systems, not just features What We Offer Highly competitive base salary (DOE) + bonus Equity / stock options in a high-growth early-stage business Private medical insurance Hybrid working (London-based, flexible model) High ownership role with significant influence on product and architecture Oscar Associates (UK) Limited is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy. To understand more about what we do with your data please review our privacy policy in the privacy section of the Oscar website.
Founding AI Engineer Location : London (Hybrid / Flexible) Salary : Competitive DOE + Bonus + Equity Company Overview We are working with an early-stage technology company building AI-native systems that help large organisations better understand, govern, and secure complex data and identity ecosystems. Operating at the intersection of AI, cyber security, and enterprise data platforms , the business is focused on transforming how organisations model access, risk, and data relationships across increasingly distributed cloud environments. The team is small, highly technical, and product-focused, with a strong bias toward ownership, rapid iteration, and building systems that operate in complex, real-world enterprise environments. Engineering sits at the centre of everything, and individuals are expected to have a direct impact on product direction and architecture. The Role We are seeking a Founding AI Engineer / Engineering Lead to join the business at a pivotal stage as the platform moves from early MVP into scalable production use with enterprise customers. This is a hands-on technical leadership role , not a product management position. You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling core components of an AI-driven enterprise platform, working across data, machine learning, and distributed systems. You will also work directly with early customers to understand real-world use cases and translate them into robust, scalable product capabilities. This role suits someone who still enjoys building and shipping code, but is comfortable influencing architecture, mentoring engineers, and shaping technical direction. You will have significant influence over: Core system architecture AI/ML strategy and implementation Data modelling and enterprise integration patterns Early product design decisions Engineering standards and scalability approach Key Responsibilities Design and build core components of an AI-native enterprise platform from the ground up Develop and deploy machine learning and LLM-based systems in production environments Build scalable data and AI pipelines across complex enterprise datasets Work closely with early enterprise customers to refine requirements and shape product direction Define and implement system architecture for AI, data, and integration layers Build agentic AI workflows and knowledge-driven systems using modern LLM frameworks Implement robust MLOps pipelines for model training, deployment, monitoring, and governance Contribute directly to production code in Python and related AI/data tooling Support technical decision-making around cloud architecture, scalability, and system design Help establish engineering best practices in a fast-moving early-stage environment Tech Stack Python TensorFlow / PyTorch LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, or similar agentic AI tooling) AWS / Azure cloud platforms (including AI services such as Bedrock) Data engineering tools (e.g. AWS Glue or equivalent) NLP, embeddings, vector databases, RAG architectures MLOps tooling for model deployment and monitoring Experience with distributed data systems and APIs Required Skills & Experience Several years' experience in software engineering, data engineering, or AI engineering roles Strong academic background in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or similar Experience working in a product-led technology environment (SaaS, AI platform, or similar) Proven ability to ship production-grade AI or data systems Strong Python engineering capability Experience with modern ML / LLM systems and frameworks Exposure to cloud-based AI/ML platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) Comfortable working in early-stage environments with ambiguity and ownership Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with technical and non-technical stakeholders Bonus Experience (Highly Valued) Cyber security / identity / access management (IAM / IdAM) exposure Cloud operations, DevSecOps, or infrastructure-heavy environments Experience in regulated or enterprise-scale domains Knowledge of enterprise data governance, data modelling, or integration architecture How You Work Highly hands-on and enjoys building systems end-to-end Comfortable operating in ambiguity and shaping problems as well as solving them Strong bias toward delivery, iteration, and practical engineering outcomes Collaborative, but able to take full ownership of technical decisions Interested in building foundational systems, not just features What We Offer Highly competitive base salary (DOE) + bonus Equity / stock options in a high-growth early-stage business Private medical insurance Hybrid working (London-based, flexible model) High ownership role with significant influence on product and architecture Oscar Associates (UK) Limited is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy. To understand more about what we do with your data please review our privacy policy in the privacy section of the Oscar website.
Understanding Recruitment
Do you have experience building and shipping exceptional UX at an early-stage startup or customer-facing product? Are you excited by real ownership, product influence, and shaping the frontend experience of a genuinely category-defining AI product? Founding Engineer (Frontend) - AI-native Workspace Salary: Up to £170k + equity Location: London, onsite Experience: 5-10 years ( startup or customer-facing product background are a bonus) I'm excited to be continuing our partnership with a pre-seed AI startup building agentic AI systems that radically improve how knowledge workers think, decide, and get work done. This is not another chatbot. This is an AI-native product being built from first principles by engineers from elite technical environments (e.g. Palantir, Citadel). As the company evolves into a more product-led, consumer-style experience, they're now looking to hire their first dedicated Frontend Engineer, someone who can own and shape the entire user experience from the ground up. This is a true founding-level opportunity as the 3rd engineering hire. You'll work directly on: Building high-performance, real-time AI-native interfaces Crafting intuitive UX for complex autonomous workflows Developing beautiful, responsive frontend systems in TypeScript & React Creating product experiences users genuinely love using Influencing product direction, interaction design, and frontend architecture They're particularly interested in engineers who have: Worked on developer tools, web-based IDEs, or highly interactive products (e.g. Gitpod, GitHub, Cursor-style environments) Built customer-facing or prosumer applications Strong product intuition and a sharp eye for UX/UI Experience operating in fast-moving startup environments A desire to own frontend strategy, not just implement tickets Tech stack: TypeScript React AI-native workflows & tooling throughout engineering Bonus points for: Some backend experience for optionality Experience with PLG or consumer-style products Design sensibility and ability to bridge engineering + product experience What they're looking for: Strong commercial & product mindset - you care deeply about user experience and outcomes Comfortable in ambiguity and zero-to-one environments Proven ability to ship quickly and iterate with users High ownership mentality and startup pace AI-native way of working (LLMs are tools, not toys) Why join now? Real founding-level ownership and influence Small, elite team that ships fast Well-funded with long runway Opportunity to define the frontend experience of a next-generation AI product Not another boring B2B SaaS platform this is something people will genuinely want to use If you're excited by the idea of building beautiful, intelligent product experiences at the frontier of AI, this is the one. Interested? Apply now
Do you have experience building and shipping exceptional UX at an early-stage startup or customer-facing product? Are you excited by real ownership, product influence, and shaping the frontend experience of a genuinely category-defining AI product? Founding Engineer (Frontend) - AI-native Workspace Salary: Up to £170k + equity Location: London, onsite Experience: 5-10 years ( startup or customer-facing product background are a bonus) I'm excited to be continuing our partnership with a pre-seed AI startup building agentic AI systems that radically improve how knowledge workers think, decide, and get work done. This is not another chatbot. This is an AI-native product being built from first principles by engineers from elite technical environments (e.g. Palantir, Citadel). As the company evolves into a more product-led, consumer-style experience, they're now looking to hire their first dedicated Frontend Engineer, someone who can own and shape the entire user experience from the ground up. This is a true founding-level opportunity as the 3rd engineering hire. You'll work directly on: Building high-performance, real-time AI-native interfaces Crafting intuitive UX for complex autonomous workflows Developing beautiful, responsive frontend systems in TypeScript & React Creating product experiences users genuinely love using Influencing product direction, interaction design, and frontend architecture They're particularly interested in engineers who have: Worked on developer tools, web-based IDEs, or highly interactive products (e.g. Gitpod, GitHub, Cursor-style environments) Built customer-facing or prosumer applications Strong product intuition and a sharp eye for UX/UI Experience operating in fast-moving startup environments A desire to own frontend strategy, not just implement tickets Tech stack: TypeScript React AI-native workflows & tooling throughout engineering Bonus points for: Some backend experience for optionality Experience with PLG or consumer-style products Design sensibility and ability to bridge engineering + product experience What they're looking for: Strong commercial & product mindset - you care deeply about user experience and outcomes Comfortable in ambiguity and zero-to-one environments Proven ability to ship quickly and iterate with users High ownership mentality and startup pace AI-native way of working (LLMs are tools, not toys) Why join now? Real founding-level ownership and influence Small, elite team that ships fast Well-funded with long runway Opportunity to define the frontend experience of a next-generation AI product Not another boring B2B SaaS platform this is something people will genuinely want to use If you're excited by the idea of building beautiful, intelligent product experiences at the frontier of AI, this is the one. Interested? Apply now
