Hands-on senior IC role · Deep-tech AI startup
Reporting to: CTO
Contract: Full-time, permanent
About the role
Tikos is building a next‑generation decision‑reasoning platform that combines distributed systems with applied AI. We are a small, technically led team solving problems that genuinely lack a textbook answer, and we are seeking a Senior Software Engineer who wants to roll up their sleeves and help us crack them.
This is a hands‑on individual contributor role. You will write production code daily, shape how our AI services are built, and work closely with the CTO on architectural decisions. You will not be running a team or owning compliance frameworks; your focus is on engineering excellence on hard problems.
If you are energised by small‑team ownership, fast feedback loops, and seeing your work go from notebook to production in weeks rather than quarters, you will feel at home here.
What you’ll work on
- Designing and building Python services that power our decision‑reasoning platform, including the data pipelines, APIs, and inference layers behind it.
- Taking PyTorch‑based models from research code into reliable, low‑latency production services.
- Working with LLMs (Gemini, Claude and others) to build features that ship, not demos. System design, evaluation, retrieval, guardrails, profiling the real stuff.
- Modelling and querying complex data using relational and graph databases.
- Pairing with the CTO on architectural calls, distributed processing, latency budgets, cost trade‑offs, where to spend complexity and where not to.
What we’re looking for
We care more about how you think than the exact lines on your CV. That said, the following will set you up to do well here:
Must‑have
- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong track record of shipping production systems in Python.
- Solid grounding in applied ML or deep learning, comfortable working with PyTorch, taking models to production, and reasoning about inference performance.
- Practical experience building and integrating with deep learning models.
- Experience designing services that handle real load, APIs, async workers, queues, and sensible data modelling.
- Comfortable in a cloud‑native environment: Docker/K8, CI/CD pipelines (Git‑based), and at least one major cloud (GCP preferred).
- Genuine startup temperament, pragmatic, self‑directed, happy to operate without a fully‑defined spec, and willing to own the bits nobody else has picked up yet.
Nice‑to‑have
- Go, or another statically typed language alongside Python.
- Graph database experience (Neo4j, ArangoDB, or similar).
- Exposure to security‑conscious engineering practices (encryption, access control, audit logging), you will be contributing to our ISO 27001 / SOC 2 posture, but you will not be owning the framework.
- Front‑end familiarity (Angular or similar) for the occasional full‑stack pairing session.
- A degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Maths, or a related field; or equivalent experience that demonstrates the same depth.
Our stack
- AI / ML: PyTorch/JAX, deep learning inference, Gemini and other LLMs
- Cloud & DevOps: GCP, Docker, Git‑based CI/CD
- Data: Relational and graph databases, distributed processing
- Compliance posture: ISO 27001, SOC 2, ISO 42001
Why this role is worth your time
We are not pretending to compete with FAANG salaries, and you are probably not reading this if that is what you are after. What we offer instead is the kind of role that is genuinely hard to find:
- Real AI problems. Not wrapper‑on‑an‑API work. You will be wrestling with reasoning systems, latency‑sensitive inference, and graph‑shaped data that does not fit neatly into existing frameworks.
- Equity that could matter. EMI share options in a deep‑tech company at a stage where employee ownership still translates into meaningful upside.
- Small team, big surface area. You will shape architecture, tooling, and how we build, not inherit someone else’s decisions from three years ago.
- Short distance from idea to production. No three‑layer approval process. If something needs building, you and the CTO can be designing it the same afternoon.
- Salary: £60,000 – £65,000, based on experience
- Equity: EMI share options
- Pension: Company pension scheme
- Private medical insurance: Available on successful completion of probation
- Learning & development: Dedicated annual budget for courses, conferences, books, and certifications
- Working pattern: Hybrid from our Bristol HQ
- Culture: Small, collaborative, technically‑led team that genuinely backs its engineers
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