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