Founding Engineer

My client is a tech-enabled advisory business serving insurance, wealth management, and broader financial services. They combine deep industry partners, a high-calibre consulting network, and a proprietary AI platform that's already live and in production.

They're looking for a Founding Engineer..... someone who will own the full technical direction of the platform and grow with the Firm on this unique and exciting journey.

The platform is real: a 25+ entity relational data model, multi-LLM orchestration across Claude, Gemini, and GPT, deep Microsoft 365 integration, and a commercial intelligence layer built on Microsoft Fabric and Power BI.

What you'll own:

→ End-to-end architecture: frontend, backend, data layer, AI infrastructure

→ Evolution toward a scalable, modular, multi-tenant platform

→ RAG pipelines, document indexing, LLM orchestration at scale

→ Data integrations: SharePoint, Fireflies, Zapier, Xero and Zoho

→ Team growth and engineering practice maturity

→ AI strategy conversations directly with senior partners and clients.

Tech stack: Next.js · Node.js / Express · Azure · MS SQL · MongoDB · LlamaIndex · BullMQ · Redis · Microsoft Fabric · Power BI · GitHub Actions

Who this is for: A senior or staff engineer ready for full ownership. You've shipped production systems, you think clearly about architecture, and you can hold a room with non-technical stakeholders. We'll also consider a PhD, with the right type of exposure, knowledge, and approach. Financial services experience is also a genuine advantage — but not a requirement. Equity participation is also part of the package for the right candidate.

Essential requirements:

• Strong academic background — a rigorous foundation matters here
• At least 2 years working with AI or ML systems in production and 3–5 years of substantive software / platform engineering
• Deep JavaScript / Node.js skills
• Azure Fluency
• JSON data structures, REST API design, and complex semi-structured data
• Practical LLM application — RAG architectures, prompt engineering etc
• Comfort with both relational (MS SQL) and document (MongoDB) databases

This is a founding role in every sense. If this sounds like you, or someone you know..... Happy to share more details confidentially.

Please apply here, or contact me on 07808 782801 / benjamin.glitherow@tarkatalent.co.uk