Machine Learning Engineer

Real-Time Speech AI

London | On-site | £100k + Equity - Negotiable at the top of the banding for strong candidates

Can't offer visa sponsorship

We're partnered with a London / San Francisco startup building real-time speech and digital human infrastructure.

The company has just raised a Series A and is entering a scale-up phase.

They are moving into a new office designed for a team of 50 and are now scaling the engineering team across multiple functions.

This isn’t API wrapping.

The focus is low-latency speech systems designed for real-time interaction, powering voice interfaces, avatars, and conversational AI systems.

The team today is small but highly technical, and the engineers joining now will have the opportunity to shape the core infrastructure before the organisation scales.

Why this opportunity is interesting

• Work on real-time AI systems where milliseconds matter.
• Join a small team building the core product rather than peripheral features.
• Funding secured and strong early momentum.
• Opportunity to grow quickly alongside an ambitious early engineering team.

Team philosophy

Many AI companies are currently hiring almost exclusively at senior levels.

This team is taking a slightly different approach.

Alongside experienced engineers in areas like speech modelling and real-time systems, they are also looking for exceptionally promising engineers earlier in their careers.

People who are technically sharp, curious, and capable of operating at pace.

Several early hires have backgrounds in competitive programming, maths olympiads, or have built their own projects and startups.

The emphasis is on talent density, ownership, and the ability to learn quickly.

Areas they are hiring across

• Machine Learning Engineering
• Software Engineering (ML systems / backend)
• Data Engineering
• Forward Deployed Engineering
• Technical Operations

What tends to work well here

• Engineers who care deeply about the problem they’re working on.
• Builders who enjoy small teams and high ownership.
• People comfortable operating in a fast-moving environment where expectations are high.
• Individuals who want to grow quickly and take on real responsibility early in their careers.

Important context

• This is an in-person team.
• The environment is intense and fast-paced, and the expectation is that people joining are motivated by the opportunity to build something meaningful alongside a strong early team.