Software Engineering Lead

AUAR is automating homebuilding. We deploy robotic MicroFactories that produce a home's full timber structure directly on site, on demand, in sync with the build.

About Us: AUAR is a physical AI and robotics company, with construction as its vertical. We automate construction, starting with homes. While software has transformed almost every other sector, homes are still built largely by hand, in slow, expensive and fragmented processes. We’re changing that by building the technology layer for a new way of making homes: faster, more affordable, and with less waste. AUAR combines software, robotics and physical AI to turn building designs into physical homes. Our software platform, MasterBuilder, takes a design and translates it into the instructions needed to manufacture the timber structure of a home. Our robotic MicroFactory then deploys directly on a construction site and produces building components on demand: walls, floors and roofs, ready for assembly. We’re shipping our first commercial MicroFactories this year. The systems we build now will decide how homes are manufactured at scale.

We’re a rapidly growing team of around 30 engineers, roboticists, operators and designers, working from an 11,000 sq ft R it moves robot arms, cuts timber and coordinates real‑world production. A bug does not simply throw a stack trace at a user. It can stop a production run, damage material, or block a home from being built hundreds of miles away. Two builds are due in two months with three engineers: an intelligent generative design companion and a physical AI module that learns to make panels. What ships and what waits? You scope, sequence and cut to a plan that holds, and pick up work yourself to keep it moving. A production run is failing 200 miles away and the one engineer who knows that code is heads‑down. You get into the code and find the fault. A system built for one MicroFactory now has to run fifty MicroFactories, and there is a mix of different versions. You see it coming and sequence the work before the harsh feedback from deployments in the field forces the issue.

What you'll be responsible for:

• Owning the development plan and its execution: planning, stand‑ups, retros, honest estimates, risk surfaced early
• Leading and growing a team of lead engineers, aligning their technical plans into one coherent product
• Contributing directly as a senior engineer: substantial work delivered end‑to‑end, substantive code reviews
• Giving leadership a reliable read on what the team can deliver and when
• Planning capacity and hiring, and protecting the team's bandwidth

What we're looking for:

• You've led delivery for a small group of engineers before, as a staff engineer, senior engineer or tech lead. The title need not have been manager; what matters is you owned the plan and the outcome.
• A senior engineering background you've kept current: you still ship code and run substantive reviews
• You've owned engineering delivery in production: tracked milestones, honest estimates, risks caught early
• You have been there before: startup or fast‑growth experience, including taking a small team through scaling
• Depth in a modern full‑stack environment (ours is Node, TypeScript, React, Three.js) and enough range to hold your own across the robotics side (Python, C++, RAPID, PLC)
• Preferred: experience with software that plans or controls physical hardware, and a genuine interest in physical AI

What we offer:

• Competitive salary based on experience
• Share options so we all grow together
• 28 bookable days + bank holidays + seasonal office closure
• Health and dental insurance via Bupa
• An 11,000 sq ft R we are ambitious, bold, and radical

Application process:

• Initial Application
• Hiring Manager Call (45 min, remote) - Danae Parissi (Software Product Lead), and/or Gilles Retsin (CTPO)
• Working Session