Trellis
Founding Engineer / CTO — Trellis (fractional to full-time)
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Company Description
Trellis is a guidance-only retirement platform for UK adults aged 55–75 — built for the five million people who retire each decade without ever speaking to a financial adviser.
The core product is a personalised "safe-to-spend" range, backed by a proprietary cash-flow engine, delivered through a scenario library that stress-tests real decisions: retiring earlier, deferring the State Pension, funding care, helping family, making a home warmer and cheaper to run. Trellis gives people the confidence to make their own decisions — that is both the product positioning and the regulatory boundary. We do not give regulated advice, and staying the right side of that line is a design discipline we take seriously.
Trellis was built inside Mission Studio, backed by Nesta (the UK's leading innovation foundation), and is spinning out as an independent company in 2026. The founder, Shakila Hashmi, is an experienced product and strategy leader (Apple, BCG-X, Compare the Market, TD Bank). The MVP is live, real users are returning, partner integrations are in live discussion, and this is the first senior technical hire.
State of the Tech
The engine is the crown jewel: a proprietary deterministic cash-flow model (Node.js), verified and tested, built so new scenarios are fast to add. The platform around it was built at studio pace to validate the concept — which it did. The next job is different: hardening the data layer, analytics instrumentation, and user journeys into a foundation that scales — one where a single engine serves our own product and future partner integrations. How that foundation is architected is yours to shape. This is not six months of writing beautiful code — commercial milestones land throughout, and the craft is sequencing the fixes so each one unlocks a release. If taking something proven and rebuilding it right, while shipping, sounds like the fun part, keep reading.
The Role
Product-minded technical leadership, hands-on from day one, alongside a non-technical founder:
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
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.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
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.
First months
- Rebuild the data layer and instrumentation so product decisions rest on data we trust — a seed-round priority
- Set the technical roadmap; decide weekly what gets built, tested, or cut
- Shape the platform architecture so one engine serves our own product and future partner integrations
- Ship revenue-critical product: our first paid feature gates in this phase
6–12 months
- Take Trellis to first paying customers and build the feedback loops that prove it
- Build scenario persistence and the beginnings of behavioural nudges to improve retention
- Design how we integrate with B2B partners, starting with warm-handoff referrals
- Treat the FCA guidance/advice line as a design constraint, working with our compliance adviser
- Hire the first additional engineers
Beyond
- Develop the platform architecture for scale and business growth
- Shape the AI/ML layer for personalisation, conversational interface, and scenario explanation
- Own the technical narrative through seed and Series A due diligence
Who We're Looking For
Non-negotiable
- Track record shipping consumer products to real users, owning what to build, not just how
- Comfort with ambiguity and real trade-off calls; clear about where "good enough for now" ends
- Strong full-stack fluency: Next.js, Node.js/TypeScript, Postgres/Supabase or equivalent, cloud infra — enough to build hands-on
- An instinct for earning trust while moving fast: our users are making real decisions about their money
- Strong data security and privacy instincts
- Works autonomously at pace alongside a non-technical founder; willing to pick up work beyond pure engineering when the stage demands
Strongly preferred
- Founding-engineer / early-CTO experience — comfortable when everything is your job until it isn't
- Regulated or high-trust sector experience (fintech, insurtech, healthtech) and the operational reality of compliance
- Experience building and reading feedback loops (event tracking, A/B testing, user-lifecycle systems) to tell signal from noise
- A bias toward the simplest tool that works — and the judgement to know when the stage has outgrown it (ours has: part of this role is graduating Trellis from quick-validation tooling to a foundation that scales)
- UK-based, for regulatory context and close collaboration
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Not required
- Pensions or retirement domain knowledge: the founder and advisers cover the domain — technical and product curiosity matter more
- Native mobile (web-first; PWA next)
- Data science / ML background (the AI layer is deliberately deferred and interface-shaped)
The Package
Fractional to start: 3–4 days/week, day rate negotiable
Converting to full-time as funding lands: base salary + equity (4-year vest), CTO title
The conversion is the plan, not a maybe — we are hiring the person who owns Trellis's technology through Series A
Trellis is Part of Nesta Mission Studio
Trellis is being built inside Mission Studio, backed by Nesta. Mission Studio creates and scales startups tackling some of the UK's biggest social challenges, from net zero to childhood disadvantage. Financial confidence in later life sits within that mission. Mission Studio pairs a dedicated venture-building process and capital with experienced operators and Nesta's wider ecosystem of research and partnerships.
Mission Studio is led by Kenny Ewan, who previously founded Wefarm, the world's largest farming network, which reached five million users and raised over $35m in VC funding. Kenny and the team bring that experience directly to the founders and ventures they back, including Trellis.
How to Apply
Contact Shakila Hashmi — careers@mytrellis.co.uk — with a short note on the most interesting product decision you've made (not the most impressive tech). First conversation is informal. We share deep technical detail, including the engine, with strong mutual fits.
“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
Skills
Location