VP Engineering/Chief Engineering Officer

Key Skills

Aartificial intelligence, AWS, Elasticsearch, Java Programming, Machine learning techniques, MongoDB, React.js, REDIS, Spring Boot

Job Description

Vice President of Engineering/Chief Engineering Officer

Unlikely AI is a deep tech startup working to create a world where highly intelligent automated systems enable humanity to flourish and benefit us all. We are pioneering transformative technology aimed at making Artificial Intelligence more accurate, trustworthy and safe. By taking a contrarian approach, we believe our technology can solve some of the most pressing problems facing the industry. Based in London, the company was founded by William Tunstall-Pedoe, best known for his key role in the creation of Alexa following the acquisition of his first start-up by Amazon in 2012.

This is a start-up which can realistically change what is possible for software if we succeed and much of what we need to prove comes under the heading of engineering: scaling and innovating to turn the technology we have developed into magical products that will positively affect the lives of billions of people.

The company has recently closed an oversubscribed $20m round and one of our first tasks is building our world-class engineering team to solve those problems and build those products. To do this requires an exceptional engineering leader to build and lead this team and the company to success.

We consider this role to be a C-level role, reporting directly to the CEO. It is the role which can be most influential on our success at this stage and will be responsible for much of the headcount. We are flexible on job title but consider VP Engineering to be the most descriptive of the role with a focus on management and delivery of world class technical talent and engineering delivery. (It would be Chief Engineering Officer if the English word for engineering did not begin with an 'e').

Compensation will be through significant cash compensation and generous share options. The company has a tax-efficient EMI share option scheme set up (not available to larger companies) where no tax is due in the UK on the issuing, vesting or exercising of options. This scheme allows us to provide substantial exposure to the success of the company without taxes being paid before sale of the shares.

Key requirements:

Experience building and managing a world-class engineering team in a fast growing, deeply technical, successful start-up.

Deep understanding of how to find, inspire, motivate and retain top engineering talent.

Deep understanding of how to manage a world-class engineering team to deliver world-changing products and overcome technical barriers.

Understanding of the state-of-the-art in Artificial Intelligence and modern machine-learning techniques.

Genuine 'think big' mentality - unafraid to shoot for extraordinary outcomes (in a step-by-step fashion)

Tolerance for ambiguity and substantial technical risk.

Deeply knowledgeable about best practice for running world-class engineering teams in an early start-up

Ability to contribute more broadly to our success by being a key member of our management team.

Someone fully on board with and enthusiastic about our culture and principles: 

Desirable requirements:

Strong academic background: graduate of a top university

Familiarity with our technical stack: Java + Spring Boot; Typescript + React; MongoDB + Elasticsearch + Redis; AWS