Senior Software / AI Engineer - Founding Engineer

Company Description FAIR Football AI is a football-focused AI research startup. We’re building the next generation of football intelligence. FAIR is an AI that goes beyond traditional stats to analyse every action, movement, and decision on the pitch, and evaluate how they impact team performance. Trained to understand how football should be played, FAIR gives users access to advanced football intelligence that helps them make better decisions, whether they are fans, data fans, fantasy football players, analysts, predictors or football clubs. What You'll Build You'll own the architecture and implementation of production systems that combine large-scale data processing, modern backend engineering, and state-of-the-art AI. Your responsibilities will include: Design, build, and scale distributed backend services and REST APIs.Design, build, and optimise scalable SQL and NoSQL data architectures for large-scale AI applications.Build production-grade AI applications using Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, AI agents, orchestration frameworks, prompt engineering, and evaluation pipelines.Design and optimise data pipelines for AI inference, feature engineering, and real-time predictions.Develop scalable Python services with FastAPI and integrate frontend applications built with React.Deploy, monitor, and optimise cloud-native applications on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure.Design systems that prioritise scalability, reliability, observability, and low latency.Improve developer productivity through automation, CI/CD pipelines, testing, monitoring, and engineering best practices.Work closely with the R&D team to bridge research and engineering, turning AI research, models, and prototypes into robust, scalable production systems.Help shape FAIR's long-term technical architecture and engineering culture. Technical Requirements 7+ years of professional software engineering experience.Expert-level Python development.Extensive experience designing scalable backend systems and APIs.Strong experience with FastAPI and asynchronous Python programming.Proven experience designing and managing large SQL and NoSQL databases.Experience building high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems.Production experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure.Strong understanding of software architecture, system design, concurrency, caching, and performance optimisation.Proven experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI agents and multi-agent systems, LLM orchestration frameworks, Prompt engineering, embedding models and vector databases, model evaluation and benchmarking, tool calling and function calling, AI application observability and monitoring and LLM optimisation for latency, cost, and quality.Strong understanding of application and cloud security principlesExperience implementing security best practices in cloud environments and awareness of AI security challenges, including LLM vulnerabilities, prompt injection, data privacy, and secure AI application deployment. Other Requirements Strong understanding of football analyticsExperience working in an early-stage startup Who You Are You enjoy solving difficult engineering problems.You have high standards for code quality and system design.You take ownership and are comfortable making critical technical decisions.You thrive in fast-moving environments with minimal bureaucracy.You are passionate about football and have strong knowledge of at least 1 professional football league. Compensation & Growth Opportunity This is a Founding Engineer position with a meaningful stock option package, offering the opportunity to participate in the company's long-term success. As an early-stage startup, the role currently involves limited cash compensation combined with significant equity upside. Cash compensation will progressively increase as FAIR scales, reaches key milestones, and grows its revenue base. You will report directly to the Founder & CEO and play a key role in shaping FAIR's technical foundations. For exceptional performers who demonstrate strong technical leadership, strategic thinking, and the ability to scale engineering capabilities, this role offers a clear path toward Chief Technology Officer (CTO), with the opportunity to play a key role in defining the company's technology strategy and build the future engineering organisation.