Founding AI Engineer

Founding AI Engineer Future Head of AI Venture-Backed FinTech Start up | Equity Opportunity | Manchester We're partnering with an ambitious, early-stage fintech business on a mission to transform how consumers engage with and improve their financial wellbeing. Having achieved strong early validation and entered its next phase of growth, the company is seeking a highly capable AI Engineer to become the first dedicated AI hire and ultimately build and lead the AI function. This is a rare opportunity to join at a formative stage, influence product direction, and create AI capabilities that sit at the heart of the customer experience. For the right individual, there is a clear pathway into a future Head of AI position, alongside meaningful equity participation. The Role This is not a traditional engineering role. You'll operate as a builder, architect, and strategic partner to the founders, helping shape both the AI roadmap and the wider product vision. The business sees AI as a core differentiator, not an add-on feature. You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling intelligent systems that enhance customer engagement, personalisation, automation, and decision-making. Key Responsibilities AI Product Development • Design and deploy AI-powered customer experiences • Build intelligent recommendation and personalisation systems • Create AI-driven workflows that deliver measurable user value • Rapidly prototype, test and launch new AI capabilities Agentic AI & Automation • Design and implement agent-based architectures • Build autonomous and semi-autonomous workflows • Develop multi-agent systems where appropriate • Leverage modern orchestration frameworks to improve customer outcomes AI Infrastructure & Architecture • Build scalable AI foundations and pipelines • Develop retrieval and knowledge-management systems • Implement evaluation, monitoring and governance frameworks • Ensure solutions are secure, reliable and production-ready Strategic Contribution • Work closely with founders on AI strategy • Help identify commercially valuable AI opportunities • Influence product direction and roadmap decisions • Act as the internal AI subject matter expert Future Leadership As the business scales, you will: • Define the AI hiring strategy • Recruit and mentor future AI talent • Establish AI standards and best practices • Build and lead the AI function What We're Looking For Technical Experience • Software engineering or machine learning engineering • Proven experience building production AI applications • Strong Python engineering capability • Experience deploying AI products into real-world environments Experience with several of: • LLM applications • Agentic AI frameworks • Multi-agent systems • RAG architectures • Vector databases • AI orchestration platforms • AI evaluation and observability tools • Model optimisation and fine-tuning Mindset We're particularly interested in individuals who: • Thrive in startup environments • Enjoy building from zero to one • Think commercially as well as technically • Are naturally curious about emerging AI capabilities • Move quickly and take ownership • Want to help build a company, not just a product Ideal Backgrounds • Senior AI Engineer • Lead AI Engineer • Founding AI Engineer • Applied AI Engineer • AI Product Engineer • Machine Learning Engineer (LLM Focus) • AI Solutions Architect What's on Offer • Competitive salary • Meaningful equity opportunity • Direct access to founders and strategic decision-making • Significant autonomy and ownership • Flexible working environment • Clear progression pathway to Head of AI Why This Role? Few opportunities offer the chance to join at such an early stage and genuinely shape the future of a business. If you're excited by ownership, AI innovation, startup pace, and the opportunity to build a function from the ground up, we'd love to hear from you. Apply in confidence for a confidential discussion. Founding AI Engineer Future Head of AI #AI