At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build the future of retail with cutting-edge AI solutions.
- Company: Stealth-mode VC-backed company revolutionising retail with behavioural AI.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Join a dynamic team focused on mentorship and engineering excellence.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in shaping the retail experience with innovative technology.
- Qualifications: 8+ years in software engineering, expert in full-stack development, and AI integration.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
About algo1: algo1 is a VC-backed stealth-mode company building behavioural AI solutions for the retail industry. Our platform is designed from the ground up, no legacy, no patchwork systems, just a clean slate and a clear vision. Our mission is to bring the intelligence of modern machine learning directly to the in-store shopping experience.
The Role: As a Staff Engineer, you’ll work at the intersection of Product, ML, and Engineering to design and build the retail stack of the future. You'll be building user experiences on top of a platform that combines AI driven content delivery on autonomous edge devices on an IoT network, combined with the backend infrastructure of a cutting edge adTech platform. This isn't a staff role where you 'work across the stack', you'll be an integral part of defining the stack.
What You Will Own:
- System Architecture: Design and lead the implementation of distributed, event-driven services that bridge the gap between cloud intelligence and edge devices.
- Technical Strategy: Set the standards for service boundaries, data ownership, and system observability to ensure we scale seamlessly from 1 to 1,000+ locations.
- AI Integration: Architect the orchestration layer for LLM-driven agentic workflows, moving beyond simple API calls to deeply integrated, autonomous system behaviours.
- Mentorship & Culture: Continuously raise the bar for engineering excellence. Conduct deep design reviews, mentor mid-level engineers, and champion a culture of 'building with AI' and the use of autonomous development agents to accelerate our velocity.
Essential Qualifications:
- Track Record: 8+ years of experience, with recent years spent in a Staff, Lead, or Principal capacity at a high-growth startup or a sophisticated scale-up.
- Full-Stack Mastery: Expert-level proficiency in modern backends (Python, Go, or Java) and high-performance frontends (React/TypeScript).
- Real-time Protocols: Mastery of async real-time, bi-directional communication protocols and patterns whether that's (WebSockets, SSE) for low-latency, real-time user experiences.
- 'AI-First' Mindset: With AI tools, you have optimised your entire workflow around and can teach others to do the same.
Nice to Have:
- Edge & IoT: Experience with 'Cloud-to-Edge' orchestration and managing state across geographically distributed systems.
- Containerised Workloads: High comfort level with Kubernetes and container orchestration in a CI/CD-heavy environment.
- Distributed Systems: Experience designing and operating event-driven architectures at scale (e.g., Kafka, Pulsar, or MQTT).
- Domain Expertise: Prior exposure to the complexities of large scale retailTech, adTech, or marTech platforms.
If you’re excited by the idea of shaping the future of retail and eager to make a real impact from day one, we’d love to hear from you.
Staff Software Engineer employer: algo1
At Algo1, we pride ourselves on being an innovative employer that fosters a collaborative and dynamic work culture, perfect for those passionate about behavioural AI in the retail sector. Our commitment to employee growth is evident through our focus on cutting-edge technology and best practices, providing ample opportunities for professional development while working alongside talented teams in a vibrant environment. Join us in shaping the future of retail with a clean slate approach, where your contributions will have a meaningful impact from day one.
