Founding Engineer – AI Startup – London

Oliver Bernard; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Oliver Bernard is seeking two Founding Engineers for an early-stage AI company in London. You will build and architect systems from scratch with significant influence over technical direction. The role emphasizes hands-on problem solving, fast decision making, and ownership in a chaotic, high-ownership environment.

London onsite with equity and competitive salary are offered. Ideal candidates have 5+ years of experience, enjoy building in ambiguity, and are comfortable shaping the product and

Qualifications

• 5+ years' experience building software systems in early-stage environments.
• Comfort with ambiguous requirements and fast-paced decision making.
• Willingness to work onsite in London.

Responsibilities

• Building and architecting from scratch.
• Influencing architecture and technical direction across the stack.

Skills

Architecting from scratch

Technical leadership

AI tooling

Tools

AI tooling

Job description

I'm working with an early-stage AI company looking to hire 2 Founding Engineers to join a small, seriously ambitious team in London.

They want people who genuinely enjoy the chaos of building early.

You'll be expected to make decisions with incomplete information, change direction quickly, get your hands dirty and solve whatever problem is most important that week.

If you want clearly defined tickets, rigid processes and a roadmap telling you exactly what you'll be doing in six months, this probably isn't it.

If you want to build, ship, make decisions and have a disproportionate influence on what a company becomes, it might be.

• Building and architecting from scratch
• Huge influence over architecture and technical direction
• London – predominantly onsite (City)
• up to 1-2% Equity + a six figure salary

The interview process reflects that too:

No take-home. The technical stage includes an AI-enabled coding challenge + architecture/design discussion. They're actively interested in how you think and use modern AI tooling, rather than pretending engineers aren't using it.

They're making two hires before the end of the year.

If you're a builder with 5+ years' experience who wants something genuinely early-stage and high ownership, message me.