Founding Engineer (Staff Level) | Build, Shape, Own (TypeScript, JavaScript, React.js, Node.js...)

Salary: £100,000 to £120,000 (Equity on top)

Location: London, Very Flexible Hybrid Working

Early-stage product | AI + video + data

We’re working with an early-stage, high-growth product business looking for a Founding Engineer to join at a critical point in their journey.

This is a true ownership role, you’ll be the technical authority, working directly with founders to shape the product, architecture, and long-term engineering strategy, whilst being happy to be hands-on when needed. You will have the chance to build your own in-house engineering team and moving away from an outsourced engineering partner.

What you’ll be doing:

Acting as the technical lead across an outsourced engineering team, guiding how things should be built
Getting deep into the current stack and rapidly understanding how everything works (first 3 months)
Prototyping, validating ideas, and challenging technical direction where needed
Defining engineering standards, architecture, and best practices
Shaping the hiring roadmap and building an in-house engineering team (next 6–18 months)
Driving development across new features, AI capability, and scalable data handling (incl. video)

What they’re looking for:

Strong Staff / Principal level engineering experience
Deep expertise across but not limited too: JavaScript, React.js, Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, AWS, Docker, CI/CD
Experience working in startup / scale-up environments
Comfortable operating with ambiguity and pace
Able to challenge founders, shape direction, and make pragmatic decisions
Happy to be hands-on, from architecture through to prototyping

Why this role:

Founding-level impact; shape the product and team from the ground up
Move from outsourced delivery to building an in-house engineering function
Work directly with founders on product, AI, and technical strategy
High autonomy, high trust, and the ability to make real decisions early

This is ideal for someone who wants to step into ownership, not just another engineering role.

If this sounds like you (or someone you know), drop me a message.

Staff Engineer

Benefits