Founding Engineer / Lead Engineer | AI Safety

ZipRecruiter; London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading AGI safety research company is seeking a Founding / Lead Full Stack Engineer based in London. You'll be responsible for developing full-stack features for a newly formed product team, collaborating with researchers and shaping the foundational technologies. This role offers a competitive salary of £150,000, equity, and various benefits including unlimited holiday and a fully catered office environment.

Benefits

Unlimited holiday & sick leave

Fully catered office (lunch/dinner/snacks)

Paid team retreats, conferences

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a Full Stack Engineer.
• Experience working as a founding engineer in a startup.
• Strong skills in both Python and JavaScript/TypeScript.

Responsibilities

• Build full-stack features from concept to launch.
• Help define the technical architecture and make key decisions.
• Create intuitive dashboards and visualisations.

Skills

Python

JavaScript

TypeScript

API design

Cloud infrastructure

Tools

AWS

EC2

DynamoDB

React

FastAPI

Job description

Job Description

Founding / Lead Full Stack Engineer – AI Safety Product (London)

Location: London (in-person, some remote flexibility)

Salary: £150,000 + equity + benefits

We’re hiring on behalf of an AGI safety research company that’s building new tools to evaluate and reduce the risks of advanced AI systems. They’re now launching a brand-new product team - and are looking for a Founding / Lead Full Stack Engineer to join at ground level.

This is a unique chance to shape the product, team, and tech stack from day one, working closely with the Head of Product and senior AI researchers. You’ll help turn cutting-edge research into real-world tools used by AI labs and tech companies.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Build full-stack features from concept to launch - backend (Python) and frontend (React)
• Help define the technical architecture and make key decisions on tools, infra, and process
• Build scalable systems to run and monitor large-scale AI evaluations
• Create intuitive dashboards and visualisations to help customers make sense of complex agent behaviours
• Collaborate daily with researchers and engineers who are using these tools internally
• Talk to users and contribute to product direction - this is a truly cross-functional role

Tech Environment

• Python monorepo, custom evaluation frameworks, AWS, EC2, DynamoDB
• React frontend, REST APIs, FastAPI (or Flask/Django)
• Focus on usability, performance, and security

About You

• 5+ years of experience as a Full Stack Engineer
• Ideally, worked in a startup working on 0-1 as a founding engineer, tech or lead engineer
• Strong skills in both Python (backend) and JavaScript/TypeScript (frontend)
• Comfortable designing APIs and working with cloud infrastructure
• You care about usability, love building things from scratch, and want your work to matter
• Bonus points if you’ve worked on developer tools, AI/ML systems, or B2B SaaS

Why This Role?

• You’ll be the first full stack hire on a mission-critical product team
• Work directly with leading AI safety researchers
• Help create tools that address some of the biggest risks in AI today
• Shape the roadmap, stack, and culture from the start

The Details

• Start date: Ideally 2–3 months from interview
• Location: London office
• Work style: Mostly in-person, remote flexibility considered case-by-case
• Interview process: Real-world coding task + technical and product-focused interviews

• Benefits include:
• Unlimited holiday & sick leave
• Fully catered office (lunch/dinner/snacks)
• Paid team retreats, conferences

If you’re excited about AI, safety, and building meaningful tools, this is your chance to help shape the future. Drop us a message to learn more or apply directly with your CV.