Founding Engineering Lead (up to £250k)

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

Job summary

Dex is partnering with a stealth legal AI startup to hire the first full-time engineer who will own the product from day one. You will select the stack, design data infrastructure, and build the agentic layer that detects and triages legal needs before a client asks.

Collaborating with an in-house legal team, you’ll streamline bottlenecks, set technical standards, and hire the next two engineers, shaping the early engineering culture and delivering a production-grade MVP.

Qualifications

• Staff-level engineering experience taking an ambiguous product from 0 to 1 in production at a VC-backed startup.
• Demonstrated track record of shipping production AI-native or agentic systems, with integrations into workspace tools like Slack, Notion, email, or CRMs.
• Pragmatic architectural judgment: ability to scope a clean MVP, make foundational technical choices, and ship fast without over-engineering.
• Experience leading technical direction and mentoring or hiring engineers, while staying hands-on in the codebase.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build the core product from scratch, selecting the initial stack, data infrastructure, and agent frameworks with complete technical ownership.
• Develop agentic systems that plug into company communication channels and workspaces to proactively detect, parse, and triage legal needs.
• Collaborate daily with the in-house legal team to identify manual bottlenecks in early client pilots and convert them into automated, human-in-the-loop workflows.
• Recruit, interview, and onboard the next two founding engineers, establishing technical standards and the early engineering culture.

Skills

Staff-level engineering

AI-native / agentic systems

Architectural judgment

Mentoring or hiring engineers

Tools

Slack

Notion

CRM tools

Email systems

Job description

This role is with one of Dex's trusted partner companies. We work closely with their teams to truly understand their culture, goals, and what they're looking for, so we can match you with the right opportunity and give you context about the role before you commit to a process.

Most legal AI companies build tools to help law firms bill faster. This stealth venture flips the model: an AI-native legal service built directly for founders and operators, pairing proactive agentic workflows with top-tier in-house lawyers who review and sign off. Backed by a substantial pre‑seed round, the founding team brings together top-tier European venture backing, former leadership from one of Germany’s largest law firms, and an active in‑house legal team already serving design partners.

You will be the first engineer through the door. There is no codebase to inherit and no technical debt to untangle; you will choose the stack, sit alongside the legal team to understand manual workflows, and build the agentic layer that intercepts legal needs before a client even asks. This is a seat for a product‑minded builder who wants to write the first commit and hire the next two engineers, not an engineering manager looking to delegate from behind a dashboard.

The work

• Architect and build the core product from scratch, selecting the initial stack, data infrastructure, and agent frameworks with complete technical ownership
• Develop agentic systems that plug into company communication channels and workspaces to proactively detect, parse, and triage legal needs
• Collaborate daily with the in‑house legal team to identify manual bottlenecks in early client pilots and convert them into automated, human‑in‑the‑loop workflows
• Recruit, interview, and onboard the next two founding engineers, establishing technical standards and the early engineering culture

What You Bring

• Staff‑level engineering experience taking an ambiguous product from 0 to 1 in production at a VC‑backed startup
• Demonstrated track record of shipping production AI‑native or agentic systems, particularly with integrations into workspace tools like Slack, Notion, email, or CRMs
• Pragmatic architecture judgment: the ability to scope a clean MVP, make foundational technical choices, and ship fast without over‑engineering
• Experience leading technical direction and mentoring or hiring engineers, paired with a commitment to staying deeply hands‑on in the codebase