Founding Engineer

Acceler8 Talent; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Meaningful equity

Job summary

Acceler8 Talent is seeking a Founding Engineer in London to build the coordination layer for critical infrastructure and take end-to-end ownership of high-throughput backend and distributed systems.

You will develop event-driven systems that react to live data, work on agentic AI, and design real-time data infrastructure. You will own architecture, deployment, and production reliability, deploying software directly into customer environments.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering fundamentals with production systems experience.
• Ability to architect and deliver substantial components independently.
• Comfort working directly with customers and operators.

Responsibilities

• Take end-to-end ownership of high-throughput backend and distributed systems.
• Develop event-driven systems that react to live operational data.
• Work on agentic AI and automated decision-making systems.
• Design real-time data infrastructure and state-synchronisation systems.
• Build predictive systems that identify operational conflicts before delays.
• Own architecture, implementation, deployment and production reliability.
• Deploy software directly into customer environments.
• Collaborate closely with operators and customers to understand real-world requirements.
• Contribute to technical hiring as the engineering team grows.

Skills

High-ownership mindset

Backend development

Distributed systems

Real-time / event-driven

Customer-facing engineering

Product judgment

Proactivity & ownership

Job description

Founding Engineer

London — On-site

Engineering | Early-stage | Meaningful equity

We’re hiring aFounding Engineerto help build the coordination layer for critical infrastructure.

The company is building a real-time orchestration platform for airport operations — replacing fragmented radio calls, spreadsheets and manual coordination with software that can understand live operational state, predict conflicts and trigger decisions before delays cascade.

Backed by$3.3M in pre-seed fundingand already deployed in a live airport environment, the team is now expanding its engineering function.

What You’ll Work On

You’ll take genuine end-to-end ownership across the product, including:

• Building high-throughput, low-latency backend and distributed systems
• Developing event-driven systems that react to live operational data
• Working on agentic AI and automated decision-making systems
• Designing real-time data infrastructure and state-synchronisation systems
• Building predictive systems that identify operational conflicts before they escape
• Owning architecture, implementation, deployment and production reliability
• Deploying software directly into customer environments
• Working closely with operators and customers to understand real-world requirements
• Contributing to technical hiring as the engineering team grows

What We’re Looking For

This is a high-ownership founding engineering role for someone who wants to build, ship and own complex software from the ground up.

You’ll likely have:

• Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience building complex production systems
• Experience withbackend, distributed, real-time or event-driven systems
• The ability to independently architect and deliver substantial parts of a product
• Strong product judgement and comfort working directly with customers
• High levels of agency, proactivity and ownership
• A willingness to work across infrastructure, AI, product and deployment problems
• An ability to operate effectively in a small, fast-moving engineering team

Relevant experience may includeagentic AI, distributed systems, real-time infrastructure, optimisation, logistics, aviation or other operationally complex environments.

The Environment

You’ll join a small, talent-dense team with backgrounds spanningImperial College London, Formula 1, the FIA and Lufthansa.

The product is already being used in a live operational environment, so you’ll be building against real customer workflows rather than hypothetical use cases.

This is a hands‑on role with significant responsibility. You’ll be expected to identify problems, make technical decisions, execute quickly and take ownership through to production.

The role also includes occasional customer deployments, currently aroundone week per month when participating in an implementation. Travel will rotate across the team and is expected to reduce as the company grows.

Location & Requirements

• Central London — on-site
• Full-time
• Applicants must already have theright to work in the UK
• Visa sponsorship is not currently available
• Competitive compensation and meaningful early-stage equity

If you want to join a small team, own major parts of a technically difficult product and build software that coordinates real‑world infrastructure in real time, this is an opportunity to have significant impact from an early stage.