Full job descriptionFounding AI Engineer Future Head of AI

Venture-Backed FinTech Start up | Equity Opportunity | Manchester
We’re partnering with an ambitious, early-stage fintech business on a mission to transform how consumers engage with and improve their financial wellbeing.
Having achieved strong early validation and entered its next phase of growth, the company is seeking a highly capable AI Engineer to become the first dedicated AI hire and ultimately build and lead the AI function.
This is a rare opportunity to join at a formative stage, influence product direction, and create AI capabilities that sit at the heart of the customer experience.
For the right individual, there is a clear pathway into a future Head of AI position, alongside meaningful equity participation.




The Role

This is not a traditional engineering role.
You’ll operate as a builder, architect, and strategic partner to the founders, helping shape both the AI roadmap and the wider product vision.
The business sees AI as a core differentiator, not an add-on feature.
You will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling intelligent systems that enhance customer engagement, personalisation, automation, and decision-making.




Key Responsibilities

AI Product Development
*Design and deploy AI-powered customer experiences
*Build intelligent recommendation and personalisation systems
*Create AI-driven workflows that deliver measurable user value
*Rapidly prototype, test and launch new AI capabilities
Agentic AI & Automation
*Design and implement agent-based architectures
*Build autonomous and semi-autonomous workflows
*Develop multi-agent systems where appropriate
*Leverage modern orchestration frameworks to improve customer outcomes
AI Infrastructure & Architecture
*Build scalable AI foundations and pipelines
*Develop retrieval and knowledge-management systems
*Implement evaluation, monitoring and governance frameworks
*Ensure solutions are secure, reliable and production-ready
Strategic Contribution
*Work closely with founders on AI strategy
*Help identify commercially valuable AI opportunities
*Influence product direction and roadmap decisions
*Act as the internal AI subject matter expert
Future Leadership
As the business scales, you will:
*Define the AI hiring strategy
*Recruit and mentor future AI talent
*Establish AI standards and best practices
*Build and lead the AI function


What We’re Looking For
Technical Experience
*Software engineering or machine learning engineering
*Proven experience building production AI applications
*Strong Python engineering capability
*Experience deploying AI products into real-world environments
Experience with several of:
*LLM applications
*Agentic AI frameworks
*Multi-agent systems
*RAG architectures
*Vector databases
*AI orchestration platforms
*AI evaluation and observability tools
*Model optimisation and fine-tuning
Mindset
We’re particularly interested in individuals who:
*Thrive in startup environments
*Enjoy building from zero to one
*Think commercially as well as technically
*Are naturally curious about emerging AI capabilities
*Move quickly and take ownership
*Want to help build a company, not just a product
Ideal Backgrounds
*Senior AI Engineer
*Lead AI Engineer
*Founding AI Engineer
*Applied AI Engineer
*AI Product Engineer
*Machine Learning Engineer (LLM Focus)
*AI Solutions Architect




What’s on Offer

*Competitive salary
*Meaningful equity opportunity
*Direct access to founders and strategic decision-making
*Significant autonomy and ownership
*Flexible working environment
*Clear progression pathway to Head of AI




Why This Role?

Few opportunities offer the chance to join at such an early stage and genuinely shape the future of a business.
If you’re excited by ownership, AI innovation, startup pace, and the opportunity to build a function from the ground up, we’d love to hear from you.
Apply in confidence for a confidential discussion.


Founding AI Engineer Future Head of AI

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