Product AI Engineer

Opus Recruitment Solutions Limited; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

This is a founding role at a fast-growing AI startup transforming financial operations. You will turn customer problems into working AI-powered products, owning the process from discovery to deployment.

You’ll work with founders and engineers to design and ship production-ready software across backend and frontend systems, applying modern LLM tech and an ownership mindset to deliver real enterprise value.

Qualifications

• Experience shipping products end-to-end.
• Strong ownership mentality and proactivity.
• Startup or early-stage company experience is a plus.
• Able to work independently with minimal hand-holding.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with customers to understand challenges and identify opportunities
• Design and build AI-powered products and workflows
• Develop and deploy production software across backend and frontend systems
• Build reliable AI experiences using modern LLM technologies
• Continuously iterate based on customer feedback and usage patterns
• Help shape technical and product decisions alongside the founding team
• Improve product quality through evaluation frameworks, observability and testing
• TypeScript / Node.js, Python, React, AWS, Serverless Architecture

Skills

Ownership mindset

Customer engagement

End-to-end delivery

Software engineering

Tools

TypeScript/Node.js

Python

React

AWS

Serverless architecture

LangGraph/LangChain

Job description

We're working with a fast-growing, venture-backed AI startup that's transforming how financial institutions automate complex operational and compliance workflows.

They're looking for a Founding Product AI Engineer to join a small, ambitious team and help build AI-powered products used by enterprise customers every day.

This role sits at the intersection of engineering, product and AI. You'll work closely with founders, customers and engineers to identify problems, design solutions and ship production-ready products quickly.

The Opportunity

This is not a traditional software engineering role. This is not an AI research role.

You'll be responsible for turning customer problems into working products, owning the process from discovery and design through to deployment and iteration.

You'll be trusted to make decisions, move quickly and have a genuine impact on the direction of both the product and the company.

What You'll Do

• Work directly with customers to understand challenges and identify opportunities
• Design and build AI-powered products and workflows
• Develop and deploy production software across backend and frontend systems
• Build reliable AI experiences using modern LLM technologies
• Continuously iterate based on customer feedback and usage patterns
• Help shape technical and product decisions alongside the founding team
• Improve product quality through evaluation frameworks, observability and testing
• TypeScript / Node.js
• Python
• React
• AWS
• Serverless Architecture

Must-Haves

• Experience building and shipping products end-to-end
• Strong ownership mentality
• Startup, founding engineer or early-stage company experience
• Able to work independently with minimal hand-holding
• Comfortable speaking with customers and stakeholders
• Strong software engineering skills
• Genuine interest in AI and emerging technologies
• Builder mindset with a bias towards action

Nice-to-Haves

• Production LLM experience
• AI agents and agentic workflows
• RAG systems
• LangGraph, LangChain or similar frameworks
• Evals, guardrails and observability tooling
• AWS and serverless environments
• Fintech, compliance or regulated-industry experience

Ideal for engineers who enjoy ownership, thrive in startup environments, love building products and want to work with AI in production rather than purely research settings.