Founding Engineer, Infrastructure & Platform | London

C&D Talent Advisory; Stevenage; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

TechTree is recruiting for a Founding Engineer, Infrastructure & Platform in London to help build a scalable AI-native risk infrastructure for regulated enterprises. It offers ownership of core backend services, IAM, security controls, and multi-tenant architecture.

You will shape the platform with seed-stage leadership and work on production-grade pipelines and observability. You will join a high-growth startup environment with autonomy and a strong focus on reliability and compliance, shaping

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience.
• Significant infrastructure ownership in production environments.
• Strong experience with a backend programming language (TypeScript/Node.js preferred).
• Production experience with Terraform.
• Strong CI/CD experience and containerized production workloads.
• Solid cloud infrastructure knowledge and security fundamentals.
• Experience with IAM, network segmentation, and secrets management.
• Experience designing compliance controls (SOC 2 / ISO 27001).
• Hands-on ownership of SOC 2, ISO 27001, or comparable compliance programs.
• Operational maturity from supporting production systems that matter.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Skills

Backend engineering

Infrastructure ownership

Backend programming language

TypeScript/Node.js

Terraform

CI/CD

Containerized workloads

Cloud infrastructure

Deployment operations

Security fundamentals

IAM & access-control

Network segmentation

Secrets management

Supply-chain security

Compliance controls (SOC 2/ISO 27001)

Operational ownership

Autonomy

Tools

GitHub Actions

Docker

AKS

Production-grade AI infrastructure

LLM platforms

RAG systems

Agentic workflows

Secure AI tool execution

Job description

Founding Engineer, Infrastructure & Platform | London C&D Talent AdvisoryStevenage, United Kingdom

This is a role that TechTree is recruiting for on behalf of one of its clients.

TechTree is an AI-driven recruitment platform working with high-growth companies.

When you apply, TechTree's AI Agent matches you not just to this role, but to other relevant opportunities across its network, so one application can unlock multiple roles.

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
• 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

• Compute isolation
• Data isolation
• Network isolation
• GitHub Actions
• Docker
• AKS
• Production-grade AI infrastructure
• LLM platforms
• RAG systems
• Agentic workflows
• Secure AI tool execution

Strong profile signals

• Former founder or technical founder
• Former CTO returning to an individual-contributor role
• Founding or early-stage engineering experience
• 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
• 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
• 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
• 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