Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London
Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London

Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London

London Full-Time 130000 - 150000 £ / year (est.) No home office possible
Aurora

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Own and ship AI-driven product features from start to finish.
  • Company: Join Aurora, a digital-first lifestyle platform for high achievers.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, equity, health benefits, and a tech budget.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact in a fast-paced, innovative environment.
  • Qualifications: 4+ years in software development with AI/ML experience.
  • Other info: Flexible remote days and excellent career growth opportunities.

The predicted salary is between 130000 - 150000 £ per year.

Salary: £130,000 – £150,000

Equity: 0.7% - 1%

In-person, with flexible remote days

European visa sponsorship available

About Aurora

Aurora is a digital-first lifestyle management platform built for the world's highest-performing individuals and organizations. Our members include tier-1 founders, executives, athletes, and families who delegate complex, ongoing needs across travel, dining, experiences, luxury purchases, and health.

Aurora is mobile-first, conversational, proactive, and available 24/7 globally. Members interact with the product multiple times per day, often for time-sensitive, high-stakes decisions. This makes product quality, judgment, and system behaviour directly visible to customers in real time.

Agentified premium lifestyle commerce represents a $10bn+ opportunity. Legacy concierge and lifestyle services rely on fragmented CRMs and manual workflows that do not scale. Aurora combines automation, AI agents, and expert human curators into a single system designed for speed, accuracy, and leverage.

We've seen exceptional early traction:

  • 51% DAU, 95% WAU
  • Transaction volume and member spend already outperforming industry benchmarks by 5× within the first three months

Aurora is backed and chaired by Alex Macdonald, the most successful founder in this category.

So far, we've:

  • Raised >$5M from experienced operators and tier-1 investors
  • Built a product with industry-leading engagement from paying members
  • Collected a large, proprietary dataset of user context (preferences, calendars, health signals) that powers proactive AI behaviour

We are now expanding the founding engineering team as we scale the product and the member base. Aurora is built in person from our offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles. The engineering team works primarily from our London office in Belgravia, with flexible remote days.

The role

We're hiring a Founding Product Engineer to own and ship user-facing, AI-driven features end to end. This is a hybrid role that sits between engineering and product. You will be hands-on technically, while also acting as the product owner for specific features. You'll define problems, shape solutions, work directly with curators and stakeholders, and ensure what we ship actually delivers value to members.

You'll work closely with the CTO, founders, backend and mobile engineers, and the operations team. Many of Aurora's most important features live at the intersection of product judgment, ML systems, and agent orchestration - this role owns that intersection. This is a high-ownership role. You will take ambiguous ideas, turn them into concrete systems, ship them to production, and iterate based on real customer usage and feedback. Over time, this role can evolve into senior product leadership, technical leadership, or a hybrid path, depending on your strengths and ambitions. Aurora attracts people who want to build their own companies. We treat this role as training for that level of ownership.

What you'll do

  • Own product features end-to-end, from problem definition to production, feedback, and iteration
  • Act as product owner for assigned areas, balancing customer needs, technical constraints, and delivery speed
  • Design and implement AI-powered workflows using LLMs, tools, and agentic systems
  • Build and iterate on ML-driven features, including classification, ranking, extraction, and decision support
  • Design agent flows that combine automation with human-in-the-loop escalation
  • Work closely with our internal domain experts to understand real operational pain points and opportunities for leverage
  • Collaborate with engineers to ship reliable, scalable implementations
  • Define success metrics and use qualitative and quantitative feedback to guide iteration
  • Debug production issues related to AI behaviour, data quality, or workflow design
  • Contribute code across the stack where needed, with a bias toward shipping value

What we're looking for

Experience

  • 4+ years of experience building production software
  • Proven experience shipping ML- or AI-powered features used by real customers, ideally at scale
  • Experience working with LLMs, prompt design, tool calling, and agentic flows
  • Strong understanding of how ML systems behave in production, including failure modes

Technical foundation

  • Comfortable writing production-ready Python code
  • Solid understanding of backend systems and APIs, even if not infrastructure-focused
  • Experience working with data pipelines, embeddings, retrieval, or RAG-style systems
  • Ability to reason about latency, cost, reliability, and quality trade-offs

Product mindset

  • You naturally think in terms of user outcomes, not just implementation details
  • Comfortable operating with ambiguity and incomplete information
  • Able to define the "right" problem before jumping to solutions
  • Willing to make pragmatic decisions and adjust quickly based on feedback

Collaboration

  • Strong communicator who can work across engineering, product, and operations
  • Comfortable taking ownership and being accountable for results
  • Enjoys being close to customers and real usage
  • Wants to work in person with a high-performance team

Nice to have

  • Experience acting as a product owner or tech lead on specific features
  • Familiarity with Django or similar backend frameworks
  • Experience with human-in-the-loop systems or operational tooling
  • Understanding of mobile or frontend constraints
  • Exposure to regulated or high-trust environments

$2,000 Tech & Education budget

Complimentary Oura ring or Whoop

Complimentary longevity testing subscription

Lifestyle perks, events, and access opportunities

Full health benefits; 90% coverage, including full dental & vision

Complimentary dinners and evening transport

15 Flexible remote days per year

Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London employer: Aurora

Aurora is an exceptional employer that fosters a dynamic and innovative work culture, ideal for those looking to make a significant impact in the AI/ML space. Located in the vibrant Belgravia area of London, employees benefit from flexible remote working options, a generous tech and education budget, and comprehensive health coverage. With a strong focus on personal and professional growth, Aurora empowers its team members to take ownership of their projects, paving the way for future leadership opportunities in a supportive environment.
Aurora

Contact Detail:

Aurora Recruiting Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

We think this is how you could land Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London

✨Tip Number 1

Network like a pro! Reach out to people in your industry, especially those connected to Aurora. Use LinkedIn or even attend local meetups to make genuine connections. You never know who might put in a good word for you!

✨Tip Number 2

Show off your skills! If you’ve got a portfolio or side projects that highlight your experience with AI/ML, share them during interviews. It’s a great way to demonstrate your hands-on abilities and passion for the field.

✨Tip Number 3

Prepare for technical interviews by brushing up on your coding skills and understanding of ML systems. Practice common algorithms and be ready to discuss your past projects in detail. We want to see how you think and solve problems!

✨Tip Number 4

Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in being part of the Aurora team!

We think you need these skills to ace Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London

AI/ML Feature Development
Python Programming
LLM Experience
Prompt Design
Agentic Flows
Data Pipeline Management
Backend Systems Understanding
API Integration
User-Centric Product Mindset
Collaboration Skills
Problem Definition
Debugging Production Issues
Iterative Development
Communication Skills
Ownership and Accountability

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show Your Passion for AI/ML: When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for AI and machine learning shine through. We want to see how you've used these technologies in real-world scenarios, so share specific examples that highlight your experience and passion.

Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your application for the Founding Product Engineer role. Highlight relevant experiences that align with our needs, especially around product ownership and AI-driven features. This shows us you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in joining our team.

Be Clear and Concise: We appreciate clarity! Keep your application straightforward and to the point. Use bullet points where necessary to make it easy for us to digest your skills and experiences. Remember, we’re looking for someone who can communicate effectively across teams.

Apply Through Our Website: Don’t forget to submit your application through our website! It’s the best way for us to keep track of your application and ensure it gets the attention it deserves. Plus, it makes the process smoother for everyone involved.

How to prepare for a job interview at Aurora

✨Know Your AI/ML Stuff

Make sure you brush up on your knowledge of AI and ML systems, especially how they behave in production. Be ready to discuss your experience with LLMs, prompt design, and any relevant projects you've worked on. This role is all about blending technical skills with product ownership, so show them you can do both!

✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills

Prepare to talk about how you've taken ambiguous ideas and turned them into concrete solutions. Think of specific examples where you defined a problem, shaped a solution, and iterated based on feedback. This will demonstrate your ability to own product features end-to-end, which is crucial for this role.

✨Communicate Like a Pro

Since collaboration is key, practice articulating your thoughts clearly and concisely. Be ready to explain complex technical concepts in a way that non-technical stakeholders can understand. This will show that you can bridge the gap between engineering and product teams effectively.

✨Understand the User Experience

Remember, it's all about user outcomes! Be prepared to discuss how you've prioritised customer needs in your previous roles. Think about how you can balance technical constraints with delivery speed while ensuring that what you ship delivers real value to users.

Founding Product Engineer (AI/ML) - London
Aurora
Location: London

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