Founding full-stack engineer

Kiki Club; City Of London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative sublet company in London seeks a dedicated full-stack engineer to join their founding team. As the third member, you will be responsible for the complete tech stack and product development. The role requires strong software engineering skills, the ability to work collaboratively in a dynamic environment, and a commitment to the company's mission. Competitive total compensation of £160-170k split between salary and shares, along with benefits including free meals and gym membership.

Benefits

Significant number of shares

Free meals twice a day

Free gym membership

Qualifications

• Proven ability to build end-to-end projects.
• Experience working in a startup environment as a main engineer.
• Willing to learn and engage with AI.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of the entire tech stack for Kiki.
• Work in-person in the Shoreditch coworking space.
• Collaborate closely with the founding team on product vision.

Skills

Software engineering degree from a reputable university

Experience with end-to-end project development

1-5 years professional experience or 5+ years coding experience

Curiosity to learn AI concepts

Education

Bachelor's degree in software engineering or relevant field

Job description

Overview

Kiki founding full-stack engineer JD

Location: Shoreditch, London (in-person 5/6 days a week)

Total compensation: £160-170k (split between salary and shares)

This JD is a snippet and to apply you need to read our bigger hiring manifesto to understand what you’ll be building and joining us entails.

How to apply? Link is at the bottom of the hiring manifesto below

Kiki hiring manifesto to be our founding engineer

About Kiki

Kiki is an invite-only sublet club. We’re not about property, we’re solving a deeply human trust problem: how do you feel comfortable sharing your home with a stranger? Our answer: by showing you how you can trust someone through mutual friends and similarity, while being an invite-only community so everyone9s a friend of a friend.

We have 2 years of runway in the bank, raised £4m to date and have successfully built this over the last 7 years in 4 countries.

We’ve launched in New Zealand, Sydney and New York matching over 8000 people and earning hosts £2.6m. We are now building London from zero. Within 18 months our goal is to help our hosts earn £8M of rent from matching 20,000 people. In the longer term we will build the world’s first AI-centric global subletting marketplace that acts like your mutual friend (as explained in the hiring manifesto). By doing this it will unchain the world from their rent which will impact 1 billion people. Yes 1/8th of the world's population. That's how big this problem is.

The role

You’ll be the third member of our founding team and responsible for the entire tech stack and have a lot of ownership over the product. You will sit alongside myself (CEO) and Tems (first generalist hire, running the marketplace).

You’ll be building in person, in our Shoreditch coworking space 5-6 days a week. We work 12 hours a day Mon-Fri normally 10-10 but happy to customise the hours if you’re a night owl. Open to remote work on weekends. Tems and I work 6.5 days a week and you’ll be expected to work 6 days a week and get one day off per week, likely Sunday.

We would love you to get 8 hours of sleep a night (we love sleep and think it’s stupid not to)

We prioritise looking after yourself and not burning out (it’s a marathon not a sprint)

Product

Our current stack is Typescript, React, Vite, Next.js, Nest.js, Postgres, AWS, Vercel, and Terraform, with the product already built from NYC for London (we are open to changing this when you join). Each new market starts fully manual via Instagram before we flip on feature flags, and in your first months you’ll refine the marketplace with features like an interactive map, better search and listing flows, a guest book, connection graphs, and instant matching. From there we’ll move toward a native iOS app and an AI-driven marketplace that acts like your mutual friend, powered by over 8,000 real Instagram conversations we’ve had with users over the last two years - data no one else has. Unlike Airbnb, which optimizes transactions, Kiki is built to optimize trust and relationships, with AI reading between the lines to surface hidden overlaps and show two people how they know each other - and therefore why they can trust each other.

(Explained in detail in the hiring manifesto).

Who you are

We’re looking for our first founding engineer in London - a full-stack engineer who loves coding and building, has no ego, learns fast, and can be a scrappy builder. This is not a fit for you if you want to be a people manager or lead a tech team. We just need to build and my aim is to protect your time as much as possible to focus on that.

Most importantly, you want to go on a journey of a lifetime that will be anything but easy with an incredible team who will support you but challenge you at the same time. Building a business like ours isn’t easy, society will be against you (just google my name and read the articles) but you need to stay strong and keep walking through fire with us. We are searching for someone who will build that deep irrational trust with Tems and I to do whatever it takes to achieve this mission and build an exceptional team of close friends.

Skills and experience

• Software engineering degree from a reputable university (bachelor is fine)
• Built end-to-end projects before or worked in a startup building product end to end as one of the main engineers
• 1-5 years professional experience or 5+ years coding and building experience on personal projects
• Don’t need specific AI experience but must be curious and want to learn

Compensation and benefits

Total compensation: £160-170k (split between salary and shares)

• £60-70k salary
• Significant number of shares (negotiable depending on salary)
• We can sponsor your visa
• Free meals 2x a day at least 5x a week
• Free gym membership (up to £50 a month) (Tems and I go to separate gyms 4 times a week)

Note

Please self select out if you don’t want to fully invest into our team and mission. This needs to be a mission-driven adventure about having a shot at building a world that we want to live in and doing that with some of the most impressive friends you\'ll ever build alongside.

That’s what we’re offering at Kiki and for the right people it will be the greatest thing we ever achieve in our lifetimes.

If you don’t know what being a founding engineer means this video from YC is great: Becoming a founding engineer at a YC startup. Please read the bigger hiring manifesto before applying. The link to apply is at the end of the manifesto.

Kiki hiring manifesto to be our founding engineer

Cheers, Toby x