Founding Engineer

Squirrel is partnering with a pioneering team building real-time AI coaching technology for sales teams. As a Founding Engineer, you will work directly with technical leadership to design, build, and deploy core features that deliver instant, contextual guidance during live sales calls. As an early team member, you will help shape both the product and engineering culture, making a tangible impact on the company’s trajectory and growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and deploy core features end-to-end across our React + NestJS stack
• Own the full product journey from ideation to production
• Make foundational architectural decisions and leave a mark on the codebase
• Gather and act on weekly product feedback from real customers
• Collaborate closely with technical leadership to research, discuss, and execute solutions
• Drive decisions that move the company closer to product-market fit and revenue
• Help define and build engineering principles and team culture
• Ship fast and iterate based on evidence and feedback
• Take ownership of problems and see them through to resolution
• Be a sparring partner for leadership, bringing problems and solutions to the table
• Contribute to a feedback-rich, people-first environment

Qualifications Required

• 3+ years of engineering experience
• Strong proficiency in React and full JS/TS stack
• Backend experience with REST APIs, NestJS or Express, and MongoDB (or similar)
• Evidence of building independently (side projects, open source, startups, etc.)
• Experience at a company with fewer than 50 people
• High agency and a bias for action, comfortable making decisions under uncertainty

Preferred

• Previous founder experience or strong entrepreneurial drive
• AI-native developer workflow (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, concurrent/cloud agents)
• Experience with AWS and CDK
• Familiarity with CI/CD, TDD, and DevOps
• UI/UX design skills

Benefits

• Competitive cash compensation (£75,000 to £95,000)
• 1.5% equity (~£97,500, with significant upside potential)
• Fully comprehensive health insurance
• Opportunity to own and shape core parts of the codebase
• Rare 0-to-1 experience in a fast-moving AI startup
• Potential to lead a team or grow into a senior leadership role within 18–24 months
• Paid take-home task as part of the interview process

Company Culture

• Bias to action and rapid iteration
• Feedback-rich environment with regular retros and check-ins
• People-first: kind, curious, and ambitious team
• Deep ownership and end-to-end responsibility
• Operate lean and adapt quickly to new evidence
• Value experience in ambiguous, fast-changing environments

Logistics

• 5 days in the office (Central London)
• No remote or hybrid option
• Visa sponsorship not specified (please clarify if needed)

Interview Process

• Stage 0: Talk to the team at Squirrel
• Stage 1: Introductory conversation with technical leadership (30 mins, virtual)
• Stage 2: Technical and product deep-dive with leadership (45 mins, virtual)
• Stage 3: In-person final round, including a paid take-home task, system design session, and closing conversation

All company and personal names have been removed to ensure anonymity. For questions about the role, please use the application platform.