Founding Engineer
Manchester (Hybrid)
AI Product / Mobile / SaaS
The Opportunity
We’re working with an early-stage, mission-led software business looking to hire a Founding Engineer to play a key role in the next evolution of their product.
The business already has a live platform and strong market relevance — the next phase is about rebuilding and improving the product for the AI era, with a particular focus on user experience, intelligent workflows, and mobile-first product thinking.
This is a rare opportunity to join at a genuinely influential stage, working directly with the founders to help shape what gets built, how it gets built, and where the product goes next.
If you’re the kind of engineer who enjoys owning product problems, building in ambiguity, and turning ideas into shipped features, this is a very interesting role.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Taking a hands-on role in the evolution of the core product and mobile experience
- Building and shipping features using modern AI tooling, including LLMs, prompt engineering, and agent-based workflows
- Improving and shaping the user experience through better product thinking, architecture, and delivery
- Working closely with the founders to turn product ideas into scalable, high-quality software
- Identifying where AI can genuinely improve customer outcomes — not just where it looks good on a roadmap
- Making practical decisions around architecture, integrations, tooling, and technical direction
- Helping establish the foundations for the future engineering roadmap and team
What We’re Looking For
- Strong hands-on software engineering background
- Experience building and shipping real product in startup, scale-up, or high-ownership environments
- Experience working on customer-facing applications, ideally with some exposure to mobile / app-led products
- Practical experience using AI in production, including areas like:
- LLMs
- prompt engineering
- AI-assisted workflows
- agent-based functionality
- Comfortable working across product, engineering, and technical problem-solving
- A strong builder mindset — someone who enjoys getting things live, improving products, and solving meaningful user problems
- Comfortable in a fast-moving, founder-led environment
Nice to Have
- Experience with consumer products, engagement-led products, or behaviour-driven applications
- Exposure to open banking, fintech, or data-led products
- Experience working as an early technical hire or in a Founding Engineer / first product engineer type role
- Interest in helping shape technical direction as the business grows
Why Join
- Founding-level opportunity with genuine ownership
- Direct access to founders and product direction
- Opportunity to help shape an AI-native product in a meaningful way
- High-impact role where you can influence both what gets built and how it gets built
- Hybrid working in Manchester
- Equity opportunity as part of the package