Founding Engineer

Oscar Technology
London, United Kingdom
Last week
Job Type
Permanent
Work Location
Hybrid
Seniority
Lead
Education
Degree
Posted
22 May 2026 (Last week)

Benefits

Bonus Equity

Founding AI Engineer

Location: London (Hybrid / Flexible)
Salary: Competitive DOE + Bonus + Equity

Company Overview

We are working with an early-stage technology company building AI-native systems that help large organisations better understand, govern, and secure complex data and identity ecosystems.

Operating at the intersection ofAI, cyber security, and enterprise data platforms, the business is focused on transforming how organisations model access, risk, and data relationships across increasingly distributed cloud environments.

The team is small, highly technical, and product-focused, with a strong bias toward ownership, rapid iteration, and building systems that operate in complex, real-world enterprise environments. Engineering sits at the centre of everything, and individuals are expected to have a direct impact on product direction and architecture.

The Role

We are seeking aFounding AI Engineer / Engineering Lead to join the business at a pivotal stage as the platform moves from early MVP into scalable production use with enterprise customers.

This is ahands-on technical leadership role, not a product management position.

You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling core components of an AI-driven enterprise platform, working across data, machine learning, and distributed systems. You will also work directly with early customers to understand real-world use cases and translate them into robust, scalable product capabilities.

This role suits someone who still enjoys building and shipping code, but is comfortable influencing architecture, mentoring engineers, and shaping technical direction.

You will have significant influence over:

  • Core system architecture
  • AI/ML strategy and implementation
  • Data modelling and enterprise integration patterns
  • Early product design decisions
  • Engineering standards and scalability approach

Key Responsibilities

  • Design and build core components of an AI-native enterprise platform from the ground up
  • Develop and deploy machine learning and LLM-based systems in production environments
  • Build scalable data and AI pipelines across complex enterprise datasets
  • Work closely with early enterprise customers to refine requirements and shape product direction
  • Define and implement system architecture for AI, data, and integration layers
  • Build agentic AI workflows and knowledge-driven systems using modern LLM frameworks
  • Implement robust MLOps pipelines for model training, deployment, monitoring, and governance
  • Contribute directly to production code in Python and related AI/data tooling
  • Support technical decision-making around cloud architecture, scalability, and system design
  • Help establish engineering best practices in a fast-moving early-stage environment

Tech Stack

  • Python
  • TensorFlow / PyTorch
  • LLM frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, or similar agentic AI tooling)
  • AWS / Azure cloud platforms (including AI services such as Bedrock)
  • Data engineering tools (e.g. AWS Glue or equivalent)
  • NLP, embeddings, vector databases, RAG architectures
  • MLOps tooling for model deployment and monitoring
  • Experience with distributed data systems and APIs

Required Skills & Experience

  • Several years' experience in software engineering, data engineering, or AI engineering roles
  • Strong academic background in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or similar
  • Experience working in aproduct-led technology environment (SaaS, AI platform, or similar)
  • Proven ability to ship production-grade AI or data systems
  • Strong Python engineering capability
  • Experience with modern ML / LLM systems and frameworks
  • Exposure to cloud-based AI/ML platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
  • Comfortable working in early-stage environments with ambiguity and ownership
  • Strong communication skills and ability to work directly with technical and non-technical stakeholders

Bonus Experience (Highly Valued)

  • Cyber security / identity / access management (IAM / IdAM) exposure
  • Cloud operations, DevSecOps, or infrastructure-heavy environments
  • Experience in regulated or enterprise-scale domains
  • Knowledge of enterprise data governance, data modelling, or integration architecture

How You Work

  • Highly hands-on and enjoys building systems end-to-end
  • Comfortable operating in ambiguity and shaping problems as well as solving them
  • Strong bias toward delivery, iteration, and practical engineering outcomes
  • Collaborative, but able to take full ownership of technical decisions
  • Interested in building foundational systems, not just features

What We Offer

  • Highly competitive base salary (DOE) + bonus
  • Equity / stock options in a high-growth early-stage business
  • Private medical insurance
  • Hybrid working (London-based, flexible model)
  • High ownership role with significant influence on product and architecture

Oscar Associates (UK) Limited is acting as an Employment Agency in relation to this vacancy.

To understand more about what we do with your data please review our privacy policy in the privacy section of the Oscar website.

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Staff Software Engineer - Backend

Databricks London, United Kingdom
On-site

Deployment Strategist

Databricks London, United Kingdom
On-site

Sr. Security Services SA, AWS Security Services SA - EMEA

Amazon London, United Kingdom
Permanent

Lead Data Engineer

Harnham - Data and Analytics Recruitment London, United Kingdom
£90,000 – £100,000 pa Remote

Lead Data Engineer

Harnham - Data and Analytics Recruitment Edinburgh, Alba / Scotland, United Kingdom
£90,000 – £100,000 pa Remote

Senior Data Engineer

Harnham - Data and Analytics Recruitment Edinburgh, Alba / Scotland, United Kingdom
£90,000 – £100,000 pa Remote

Industry Insights

Discover insightful articles, industry insights, expert tips, and curated resources.

Where to Advertise Cloud Computing Jobs in the UK (2026 Guide)

Where to advertise cloud computing jobs UK in 2026: the specialist boards and channels that reach AWS, Azure, GCP and cloud-native engineering talent. The candidate pool is large relative to other deep tech disciplines but highly segmented — cloud architects, DevOps engineers, platform engineers, FinOps specialists and cloud security professionals each occupy distinct communities with different job search behaviours, certification profiles and salary expectations. General job boards reach a broad audience but struggle to differentiate between these disciplines, producing high application volumes but low candidate quality for specialist cloud roles. This guide, published by CloudComputingJobs.co.uk, covers where to advertise cloud computing roles in the UK in 2026, how the main platforms compare, what employers should expect to pay, and what the data says about hiring across different role types.

Cloud Computing Jobs UK 2026: What to Expect Over the Next 3 Years

Cloud Computing Jobs UK 2026: salaries, hiring trends and the AWS, Azure and GCP skills shaping UK cloud careers over the next three years. Cloud computing is the infrastructure layer on which the modern digital economy runs — and the jobs market that has grown around it is one of the largest, most sustained, and most structurally resilient in the entire technology sector. But the cloud computing jobs market of 2026 looks quite different from the one that existed three years ago, and the next three years will bring further change at a pace that rewards those who understand the direction of travel. The migration phase that defined cloud hiring for much of the previous decade is largely complete for enterprise organisations. The question for most UK businesses is no longer whether to move to the cloud but how to operate, optimise, and secure what they have already built there — and how to integrate the wave of AI capability that is now being delivered primarily through cloud infrastructure. That shift has profound implications for which cloud skills are in demand, which roles are growing, and which are beginning to plateau. At the same time, new architectural patterns — multi-cloud, cloud-native, serverless, and the growing integration of edge computing with centralised cloud infrastructure — are creating entirely new categories of specialist expertise that employers are actively competing to hire. The cloud computing jobs market of 2026 is not contracting. It is evolving, and evolving in ways that create significant opportunity for job seekers who are building the right skills. This article breaks down what the UK cloud computing jobs market is likely to look like through to 2028 — covering the titles emerging right now, the technologies driving employer demand, the skills that will matter most, and how to position your career ahead of the curve.