Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer — AI, Backend & Real-Time Systems London | £70k - £150k+ meaningful founding equity I’m working with a well-funded London start-up building the real-time control layer for complex physical operations. They’re starting with aviation, where their platform is already live at a major international airport — helping coordinate people, equipment and operational workflows as conditions change in real time. Following a $3.3m pre-seed raise and strong global commercial demand, they’re now building a small founding engineering team to take the product through its next stage of growth. This is not a narrow backend, AI or full-stack role. You’ll work directly with the founders, go deep into live customer operations, ship quickly and turn what you learn onsite into reusable product capability. What you’ll be doing Building real-time systems used within live airport operationsDesigning scalable backend services, workflow engines and operational toolingDeveloping agentic AI that can reason, take actions and interact with external systemsWorking across Python, TypeScript, AWS and PostgreSQLImproving reliability, observability, CI/CD and production infrastructureVisiting customer sites to understand how work actually happensTranslating messy operational requirements into simple, reusable softwareOwning major product areas from initial idea through deployment and iterationHelping establish the engineering culture, standards and architecture from day one What they’re looking for You’ll likely have experience as a: Founding Engineer, early engineer or technical founderBackend, full-stack, AI or forward-deployed engineerProduct-minded engineer within an early-stage start-upEngineer who has shipped production systems into demanding customer environments Strong experience in several of the following would be ideal: Python and/or TypeScriptBackend architecture and distributed systemsAWS, PostgreSQL, Docker and CI/CDEvent-driven systems, orchestration or state machinesAgentic AI, LLM workflows, tool calling or RAGScheduling, forecasting, optimisation or resource allocationProduction monitoring, incident response and high-availability systemsCustomer-facing implementation or forward-deployed engineering You do not need aviation experience. They care far more about speed, ownership, curiosity and your ability to learn a complex operational environment quickly. You’ll probably enjoy this if you Prefer building over discussing buildingCan ship an effective first version and improve it rapidlyWant genuine influence over product and technical directionAre comfortable moving between code, architecture and customer conversationsEnjoy solving problems where software interacts with the physical worldWant meaningful ownership rather than joining a large, layered engineering organisation Package Flexible and highly competitive salaryMeaningful founding equity, potentially up to approximately 1.3% for exceptional hiresDirect access to the foundersHuge ownership across product, architecture and company directionLondon-based, with time split between the Regent’s Park office and customer sites This is a rare chance to join while the technical foundations are still being shaped, but with a live product, funded runway and genuine commercial traction already in place. Interested? Apply directly or message me confidentially for more information.