Founding Engineer

A rapidly growing fintech startup is seeking a highly capable Founding Engineer to join its mission-driven team. This company is building a transformative financial technology platform aimed at empowering small and medium-sized online businesses with cutting-edge invoicing and financial automation tools. The organisation’s long-term vision is to evolve into the world’s most accurate financial AI agent tailored for SMBs.

The Role

As the Founding Engineer, you’ll be responsible for designing highly scalable systems that deliver seamless experiences for users. You’ll be expected to lead initiatives across backend architecture, system performance, security, and third-party integrations—working at the intersection of data engineering and product development.

This is a remote-first role with a close-knit, high-performance team distributed across the US, Europe, and Asia. The organisation values autonomy, accountability, and personal growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate business and technical requirements into scalable backend architecture.
• Design and implement resilient, high-performing systems with a strong focus on user experience.
• Drive backend innovation, performance enhancements, and maintainability under tight timelines.
• Lead technical problem-solving on critical challenges such as:
• Schema design and uptime: Maintain secure, optimised data schemas with 100% uptime.
• Credit scoring systems: Design intelligent, gamified models to support financial decision-making.
• Invoice matching algorithms: Create systems to accurately match incoming deposits to invoices, even with limited metadata.
• Payment orchestration: Optimise backend payment processes to reduce operational costs and improve profit margins.
• Analytics architecture: Build systems that track and visualise key operational metrics.
• Integrate seamlessly with third-party platforms such as:
• Payment processors (e.g., Stripe)
• Open banking APIs (e.g., Plaid)
• Accounting software (e.g., QuickBooks, e-conomic)

Required Experience

• 4+ years of hands-on experience with Python.
• 4+ years experience working in the AWS ecosystem.
• Strong experience with backend architectural design and best practices (e.g., message queues, caching layers, CI/CD, scalability patterns).
• Proficient in writing robust test suites (unit, integration, performance).
• Familiar with banking and accounting APIs (1+ year experience preferred but not mandatory).
• Experience working with payment gateways and processors like Stripe.
• Demonstrated capability in diagnosing performance bottlenecks and building scalable, secure systems.
• Experience with Postman for API testing.
• Working knowledge of cybersecurity best practices.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines—preferably using GitHub Actions and AWS CodeDeploy.

Candidate Profile

• Intellectually curious and analytically gifted with an obsession for detail.
• Technically versatile with a “problem-solver” mindset—able to work independently from concept to implementation
• Mission-driven with strong values and the ability to thrive in a high-trust, high-stakes environment.
• Self-motivated with a clear hunger for learning, improvement, and ownership.

Perks & Benefits

• £65,000+ starting salary (depending on experience).
• Equity options (1–7%) with a clear progression path.
• Remote-first setup with flexible hours.
• Join a globally distributed, value-driven team working on meaningful and challenging problems.

Robert Walters Operations Limited is an employment business and employment agency and welcomes applications from all candidates