Lead Software Engineer

Job Title: Lead Software Engineer

Location: United Kingdom

Work Pattern: Fully remote (UK-based preferred)

Salary: 80,00090,000 + Equity

Job Position: Permanent

This position does not offer sponsorship

Our client is building the next generation of personal finance for the UK think Cleo or Emma, but powered by real intelligence.

Their app connects to users bank accounts via Open Banking and uses AI to analyse conversations and transactions to deliver hyper-personalised financial recommendations.

They have built the foundations. Now they're looking for a hands-on, senior full-stack engineer to help us scale from MVP to a live, multi-featured consumer product and build the engineering team that will take us there.

What Youll Do

• Own and evolve the product architecture from Open Banking integrations to AI-driven recommendation systems.
• Lead development of the mobile app (React Native) and backend (Node.js or Python/FastAPI).
• Integrate with Open Banking APIs (TrueLayer, Yapily, etc.) to securely connect and manage financial data.
• Design and implement pipelines to analyse transaction data and user conversations using embeddings and vector databases (Pinecone, Qdrant, etc.).
• Ensure best practice in data security and compliance, including OAuth2, GDPR, and encrypted storage.
• Collaborate closely with founders and product to shape features, scale infrastructure, and make technical decisions.
• Play a key role in hiring and mentoring future engineers as we expand post-funding.

Who You Are

• A senior-level full-stack engineer (46 years experience) comfortable taking technical ownership in a fast-paced startup.
• Proficient with React Native (or strong React + mobile experience).
• Backend experience with Node.js or Python (FastAPI/Django) and RESTful API design.
• Experience integrating Open Banking APIs (TrueLayer, Yapily, Salt Edge, etc.).
• Hands-on experience with AI / LLM-powered systems especially embedding models (OpenAI, Cohere, Sentence Transformers) and vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS, Chroma).
• Strong understanding of secure data practices and compliance standards.
• Excellent communicator able to translate complex technical ideas to non-technical founders.
• Calm, methodical, and collaborative a natural problem-solver who can manage multiple workstreams (features, tickets, AI, UX) simultaneously.
• Experience in financial app development or working within regulated fintech environments is a big plus.

Why Join

• Be the technical backbone of a venture-backed fintech at a pivotal moment scaling from MVP to live product.
• Shape the engineering culture and help build a team around you post-funding.
• Flexible structure choose between higher salary/lower equity or vice versa.
• Fully remote team (UK preferred) with occasional meetups in London.
• Work alongside founders who value autonomy, communication, and long-term impact over quick fixes.

Tech Stack Snapshot

React Native Node.js / FastAPI TypeScript PostgreSQL Pinecone / Qdrant OpenAI / Cohere APIs TrueLayer / Yapily (Open Banking) AWS

This role suits someone whos built apps end-to-end, thrives on ownership, and is ready to take the next step toward technical leadership.

Apply or drop Jade a message to express your interest!