Understanding Recruitment
Software Engineer
Requirements
Seeking a high-agency software engineer with strong technical fundamentals and experience in low-level languages like Rust or C++. Candidates should have a product-oriented mindset and a proven track record of technical excellence in building AI-native software.
Job Description
Do you have a track record of building exceptional software and want to work on a genuinely ambitious AI product?
Are you excited by high ownership, cutting-edge AI tooling, deep technical challenges, and the opportunity to become a technical leader within a small, elite engineering team?
🚀 Software Engineer – AI x Financial Modelling 🚀
💰 Salary: Up to £250k DOE + equity
📍 Location: London - onsite 5 days per week
🌍 Will relocate and sponsor
🧠 Experience: Exceptional engineers – high agency and strong technical fundamentals
I’m excited to be working with a very ambitious AI startup reinventing how businesses make some of their biggest decisions. They’re starting by building the best AI add-in for complex financial modelling in Excel – essentially Cursor for financial modelling.
Financial models sit underneath huge decisions across M&A, private equity, investment, corporate strategy and consulting, yet the tooling behind them remains incredibly manual and outdated.
They’re building something fundamentally different.
Long-term, their ambition is to create an AI operating system for the entire strategic decision lifecycle – spanning Excel, PowerPoint, email and meetings. They’re tackling a potentially enormous new category at the intersection of AI, software engineering and financial decision-making.
They’re now looking for exceptional Software Engineers to join a small, extremely high-calibre engineering team and help build the product from the ground up.
💡 You’ll work directly on:
- Owning features end-to-end – from Rust services and backend infrastructure through to the frontend
- Using the latest AI tools and models to ship high-quality software at exceptional speed
- Building and improving AI agents, including their harness, tools and context optimisation
- Writing highly performant software – removing allocations, optimising queries and caching aggressively
- Owning and improving backend infrastructure and CI pipelines
- Debugging low-level issues and continuously optimising system performance
- Working closely with design to ensure every feature feels polished, beautiful and consistent
- Taking increasing technical ownership as the company and product scale
✅ They’re particularly interested in engineers who have:
- Evidence of being a top-centile engineer
- Exceptional problem-solving ability and strong software engineering fundamentals
- High agency, determination and a genuine desire to take ownership
- The ability to move quickly, learn new technologies and wear multiple hats
- A strong interest in AI and experience using modern AI coding tools effectively
- The ability to work across the stack rather than being restricted to one area
- A genuine passion for building great products, not simply writing code
💻 Tech stack:
- Rust (but they are open to any low-level language e.g. C++)
- TypeScript
- React
- AI / LLM tooling
- Backend infrastructure & DevOps
🎯 Bonus points for:
- Competitive programming experience e.g. Olympiads or Programming Contests
- Trading or financial technology background
- AI Tech experience
- Experience building AI agents
🔎 What they’re looking for:
- High agency – you see a problem and take ownership of solving it
- Technical excellence – you care about performance, architecture and writing exceptional software
- AI-native mindset – you understand that AI is now an essential part of the engineering workflow
- Speed + quality – you can leverage AI to move incredibly quickly without becoming a “vibe coder”
- Curiosity – you enjoy getting into unfamiliar areas and figuring things out
- Product mindset – you care about how the software feels, not just whether it works
- Leadership potential – over time, you’ll have the opportunity to own significant parts of the product
🚀 Why join?
- Join a small, exceptionally strong engineering team with backgrounds including Cambridge and UCL, Jane Street and Bloomberg
- Work on a genuinely ambitious AI product tackling a huge, under-served problem
- Own features across the entire stack rather than being confined to one area
- Work at the cutting edge of AI-native software development
- Have significant influence over the technical direction and product
- Opportunity to become a technical leader and own major parts of the product as the company scales
- Build something from the ground up in a highly ambitious environment
- Work closely with an exceptional designer and engineering team to create a product that is both technically excellent and beautiful
If you’re an exceptional engineer who wants to work at the intersection of AI, financial modelling and high-performance software, with the opportunity to have genuine ownership and impact from day one, this is a seriously exciting opportunity.
Interested? Apply now 🚀
Skills
About Understanding Recruitment
The Understanding Recruitment Universe Understanding Recruitment is the go-to destination for technology recruitment with headquarters in St. Albans, England. Specialising in Biotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, and Web3, our team of over 90 recruiters is adept in navigating the dynamic landscapes of Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Golang, .NET, DevOps, Product Management, and other tech roles within the Software Development Lifecycle. As your total talent solution partner, we seamlessly connect organisations with top-tier talent and empower tech professionals to discover their perfect fit within the ever-evolving tech industry. We offer unparalleled matches and comprehensive support across the UK, Europe, and the USA. In 2023, Understanding Recruitment became a 60% employee-owned company. This exciting development empowers our dedicated team to share in the financial rewards of our ongoing success. In the same year, we were recognised in Recruiter's annual FAST 50 listing, as the No.1 fastest-growing privately-owned recruitment business in the UK. Our in-house training programme also won a prestigious Princess Royal Training Award that is awarded to employers in the UK and Ireland who can prove that their outstanding training and skills development programmes have resulted in exceptional benefits for their business. With over a decade of success, 2022 marked the year we secured the much coveted Best Companies 3-star accreditation with a remarkable BCI score of 738 or higher, signifying 'world-class' workplace engagement. We've also been honoured as the 'Best Staffing Firm to Work For' for three consecutive years (2016-2018), and were named 'Business of the Year' at the 2017 SME Hertfordshire Business Awards.