Founding Engineer

Catapult; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Bupa Private Healthcare

Wellbeing allowances

Tax-efficient pension scheme with wage

Generous workplace nursery benefit

34 days of paid holiday

Work-visa sponsorship for London

All the equipment you need to perform

Job summary

Catapult is seeking a Founding Engineer to solve algorithmic challenges, own the entire tech stack, and build products end-to-end. You will create high-performance desktop apps (frontend and backend) and design complex systems to manage, ingest, and process massive personal data for agentic interactions.

The role requires exceptional speed in learning and problem solving, with the ability to tackle or learn almost any problem that arises, and to take ownership from architecture through to

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience on very challenging projects or exceptional ability.
• Proven track record solving difficult problems in academic or industrial settings.
• Ability to design and develop complex backend systems with strong judgement.

Responsibilities

• Solve very challenging algorithmic problems and own end-to-end architecture.
• Build desktop applications (frontend and backend) and data-processing systems.
• Lead and participate in architectural decisions and cross-functional work.

Skills

5+ years experience

Python

TypeScript

Rust

C++

Cloud infrastructure

Kubernetes

SQL / No-SQL

Self-organisation

System design

Tools

Kubernetes

SQL

No-SQL

Job description

The role

The Founding Engineer is in the ultimate cross-sectional position, and will be involved in solving tough algorithmic problems, managing the entire tech stack, and building products end-to-end.

This will include building highly performant desktop applications, both frontend and backend, and (most critically) developing and designing the very complex systems we use to manage, ingest, and process enormous amounts of personal data and serve agentic interactions. This means tackling some of the toughest engineering problems around (think early-stage Google!).

The role the Founding Engineer plays is limited only by their ability and ambition. The successful candidate must be an especially fast learner and problem solver with the ability to recognise and solve, or learn to solve, almost any problem that may arise.

You’ll love this role if you enjoy…

• Identifying and solving very challenging technical and research-level problems, and working independently to solve them.
• Building products and taking complete ownership end-to-end, from designing complex and computationally heavy backend systems, all the way to UI/UX problems on the front end.
• Learning new areas insanely quickly, and then getting stuck in. This may include, for example, understanding some new re-ranker, embedding model, memory system, or new area of research, and then participating both in its development and how we scale and include it in the product.
• Helping identify and tackle any technical challenges that may emerge.

Requirements and experience

• 5+ years of experience working on very challenging projects or very strong evidence of exceptional ability and decision-making with slightly less experience.
• A strong track record of solving difficult problems in either an academic or industrial setting.
• Clear evidence of the ability to design and develop complex and computationally heavy backend systems. You should be a trusted voice in the room, with us being able to completely rely on your judgement and implementation.
• Strong programming skills, ideally in Python, TypeScript and/or Rust/C++.
• A strong track record displaying the ability to manage engineering workflows, such as building robust and scalable products, and ideally also managing scientific processes, such as forming and testing hypotheses.
• Experience working with cloud infrastructure providers and database technologies, e.g. SQL/no-SQL, Kubernetes (or similar containerised environments), etc.
• Ability to self-organise and work independently.

Nice to haves

• Experience working with NLP/LLMs or other AI/ML.
• An ML, statistics, or mathematics background or experience.
• Major work on infrastructure-heavy projects, such as complex data pipelines.
• Work building desktop applications or front ends.
• Experience working on open-source projects, an interesting side project, or contributing to Stack Exchange or similar.

What we offer

• Competitive salary and truly generous stock options.
• Comprehensive Bupa Private Healthcare and wellbeing allowances.
• A tax-efficient pension scheme with salary sacrifice.
• Generous workplace nursery benefit.
• 34 days of paid holiday, including public holidays.
• Work-visa sponsorship so you can come build with us in person in London.
• All the equipment you need to perform at your very best.