Director of Software Engineering (London)

Direct message the job poster from Better Placed Ltd - A Sunday Times Top 10 Employer!

Director of Software Engineering –

AI Native Start-up

UK - Remote

The Business

My client is a fast-growing AI-native startup focused on building scalable agent-based systems and LLM-powered applications for enterprise customers. Backed by strong VC funding and already working with enterprise organisations, they’re now looking for a Director of Software Engineering to help scale their engineering function in the UK as they move from early traction to broader market adoption.

The Opportunity:

This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll guide the engineering team in building production-ready AI systems—balancing speed, reliability, and scalability.

You’ll work closely with research teams to deploy language models into production, shape technical architecture across cloud infrastructure and application layers, and lead on engineering hiring and culture as the team grows.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and development of interactive, scalable agent-based systems and web applications using modern languages like Python and TypeScript .
• Oversee the build and maintenance of server-side APIs and orchestration layers , ensuring smooth integration between frontend apps, backend services, and AI/ML components.
• Work closely with internal AI research teams to productionise LLMs , focusing on performance, scalability, and reliability .
• Drive the development of data generation and testing pipelines to ensure the quality and robustness of deployed models.
• Architect, deploy, and maintain cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) to support both web applications and machine learning operations (MLOps) .
• Ensure high availability, scalability, and security of deployed systems, meeting the expectations of enterprise customers.
• Foster engineering best practices around code quality, testing, documentation, and DevOps .

Ideal Background:

• Strong technical leadership experience (Head / Director level), ideally within AI-first or ML-focused product companies .
• Experience in cloud infrastructure deployment (AWS / GCP / Azure) and containerisation/orchestration (Docker / Kubernetes).
• Comfortable working with or around machine learning pipelines , even if not directly training models.
• Experience building and scaling production-grade AI-powered products .
• Strong collaborator, with a track record of working closely with AI research, product, and infrastructure teams .

Bonus Points:

• Exposure to MLOps , AI observability , or LLM deployment at scale .
• Experience with data engineering for large-scale pipelines .
• Prior background in enterprise SaaS or developer tools .

Why Join:

• AI-native mission: Shape the next generation of intelligent, agent-based software products.
• Strong funding: Backed by leading investors with solid runway.
• Technical resources: Access to high-performance compute (dedicated GPU clusters) and modern infrastructure.
• Culture: Collaborative, research-driven environment, blending strong engineering rigour with cutting-edge AI experimentation.
• Flexibility: Remote-first with optional London hub.

For a confidential discussion please apply with an up to date CV

• Seniority level
  Director

• Employment type
  Full-time

• Job function
  Information Technology and Engineering
• Industries
  Software Development and IT System Custom Software Development

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