Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer | AI Systems & Distributed Platforms
Remote (UK) | £90,000 to £120,000 | Early-Stage AI Start-Up
We're partnered with an early-stage AI business building large-scale operational AI systems designed to automate highly complex enterprise workflows.
This is not another "AI wrapper" business.
The company is developing a sophisticated AI-native platform focused around autonomous workflows, reasoning systems, orchestration, and large-scale document/case processing within highly regulated environments.
They're already live with enterprise customers and are now entering a major scaling phase as both platform demand and customer onboarding accelerate.
As a result, they're looking to hire a Principal Engineer to help shape the next evolution of the platform from both a systems and architecture perspective.
The Opportunity
This role sits directly alongside the engineering leadership team and will play a critical role in scaling the platform from early traction into enterprise-grade infrastructure.
The environment is heavily product-focused and highly autonomous, with engineers operating very close to both customers and operational workflows.
The business is looking for someone capable of:
- Scaling distributed backend systems
- Designing cloud/platform architecture
- Improving orchestration and workflow systems
- Supporting aggressive platform growth
- Helping evolve engineering standards and technical direction
- Remaining hands-on whilst operating at Principal level
Longer-term, there is a genuine pathway into broader engineering leadership as the company scales.
Tech Environment
Current environment includes:
- TypeScript backend engineering
- Node.js
- React / TypeScript frontend
- AWS infrastructure
- Postgres
- Distributed systems
- Queue/event-driven architectures
- LLM integrations
- AI workflow orchestration
- Claude / OpenAI / Anthropic tooling
The business makes heavy use of AI-assisted engineering workflows internally and operates in a very modern product engineering environment.
What They're Looking For
Strong preference for engineers who have:
- Built distributed systems within start-ups or scale-ups
- Strong backend/platform engineering experience
- Experience scaling products and infrastructure
- Cloud architecture experience (AWS ideally)
- Worked within AI-native, ML-heavy, or LLM-focused environments
- Strong systems design capabilities
- Product-focused engineering mindset
- Comfortable operating autonomously in fast-moving environments
This role is probably best suited to someone who still enjoys solving difficult engineering problems hands-on whilst also influencing technical direction at a wider level.
Package
- £110,000-£120,000+
- Remote-first across the UK
- High ownership/autonomy
- Small, highly capable engineering team
- Fast-moving start-up environment
- Significant technical influence internally
If you enjoy solving genuinely difficult systems and scalability challenges within AI-native environments, this is a very strong opportunity to build something meaningful from an early stage.
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