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Founding Engineer

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Founding Engineer
AI Engineer (Backend & Data Intensive)
Location: London (5 days a week onsite)
Salary: £120,000 – £180,000 + Equity
Experience: 3–6 years
About the Company
We are a high-growth, data-heavy financial services firm currently valued at £170 million—a figure we strongly believe under represents our true market trajectory. While our competitors stall, we are scaling organically through superior engineering and robust infrastructure. At our core, we process massive volumes of data to power complex backend systems. We don’t care about pedigree, credentials, or what university you attended; we care about raw engineering talent, sharp problem-solving, and the ability to build world-class structures from scratch.
The Role
We are looking for a mid-to-senior AI Engineer who sits firmly at the intersection of robust backend engineering, artificial intelligence, and scalable data pipelines. This is not a research position or a prompt-engineering role; you will be writing clean, production-grade code, building heavy backend data-driven systems, and embedding AI directly into the core engine of our platform.
Reasons to use Rodeo
I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?
Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.
Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.
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Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme
Why you're a good match
StrongYour economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.
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Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Why you're a good match
You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.
Experience fit
Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain highly scalable backend architectures capable of heavy, high-throughput data processing.
- Integrate and optimise AI models and machine learning pipelines directly into core infrastructure to solve complex financial services problems.
- Construct robust data engineering pipelines to ensure seamless data flow, storage, and processing across backend systems.
- Focus heavily on engineering structure, writing clean, maintainable, and highly efficient code that meets rigorous performance standards.
- Collaborate closely with the wider engineering team to continuously refine system design and architecture as we scale.


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What We Are Looking For
- 3–6 years of core engineering experience with a strong, hands-on background in backend development and AI systems.
- Exceptional software engineering fundamentals—you prioritise clean code, optimisation, and building for long-term structural integrity.
- Proven experience working within data-heavy environments, handling large-scale data processing pipelines and backend data-driven systems.
- A strong grasp of modern AI frameworks and libraries, with the practical engineering skills required to deploy them effectively into production.
- A practical, problem-solving mindset. We value what you can build and how you think over formal qualifications or university names.
- Ability to work collaboratively and at pace in a fast-moving, 5 days a week onsite environment.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
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