Founding Engineer
About the Role
This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage AI infrastructure company building a production-grade gateway that sits between applications and hundreds of large language model providers. You'll work directly with the founders to shape the technical direction of a platform that powers reliability, observability, and cost optimisation for AI-first teams. This is a high-ownership, high-impact position for someone who thinks like a founder.
What You'll Do
Design and build core backend services within a pragmatic microservices architecture, primarily in Go.
Evolve and maintain the LLM gateway, including routing, failover, load balancing, and observability features.
Make architectural decisions that balance scalability, performance, and the speed demands of an early-stage product.
Select and work with a variety of SQL databases and distributed caches, choosing the right tool for each problem.
Contribute to infrastructure running on Kubernetes, and help redefine the stack as the product scales.
Collaborate closely with founders to influence product direction and technical strategy.
What We're Looking For
5+ years of backend development experience, with strong hands-on expertise in Go (Golang).
Deep understanding of concurrency and practical experience with concurrent programming patterns.
Experience designing and operating microservices architectures, including API gateways.
Comfort working with multiple database types and distributed caching solutions, and the judgment to choose between them.
Ability to design architectures that are both pragmatic for the current stage and scalable for the future.
A track record of independently learning new technologies and frameworks.
Startup or high-growth environment mindset - strong ownership, bias for action, and comfort with ambiguity.
Right to work in the United Kingdom; visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive total compensation package with significant equity. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site in London, United Kingdom.