Senior Software Engineer

United Kingdom Source: WhatJobs

£108,000–£132,000

Remote – UK / Europe (GMT to GMT+2)

Full-time | Early-stage VC-backed startup

up to £120,000 P/A

We’re hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to join a fast-growing, VC-backed startup building developer-facing AI infrastructure.

This is not a typical “CRUD API” role.

You’ll be building and owning the backend foundations behind AI-powered systems used by real users in production — APIs, distributed services, async workflows, data pipelines, and infrastructure that needs to scale reliably.

What You’ll Work On

Designing and building production-grade APIs used by external developers
Owning backend services that support AI agents and large data workflows
Handling async processing, queues, caching, and traffic spikes
Building systems that process complex or heavy data payloads
Collaborating closely with Product & Design in a small, high-autonomy team
Making pragmatic architectural decisions in a fast-moving environment

What We’re Looking For

Strong experience building and scaling backend systems in production
Deep knowledge of Node.js / TypeScript

Experience with:

Distributed systems
Async workflows
Event-driven architecture
Caching strategies
Experience working in VC-backed startups or small product teams
Comfortable operating with high autonomy and minimal process
Strong communication skills in async, remote environments

Nice to Have

Experience building AI-powered backend systems (LLMs, RAG, agents)
Experience designing APIs used by other engineers
Exposure to self-hosted or enterprise deployment models

Not the Right Fit If

Your experience is primarily frontend-focused
Most of your background is ecommerce, digital agencies, or enterprise-only environments
You prefer highly structured orgs with strict roadmaps and layers of management

What You’ll Get