Lead Engineer in London

We’re on a mission to make real estate transactions smarter, faster, and friction-free. Real estate is the world’s largest asset class, yet the legal processes and tools behind it remain slow, manual, and underinvested. Lawyers must review dense documents line by line and piece together information across silos, all while clients demand faster, more transparent due diligence. That’s where we come in. Orbital Copilot is the AI assistant built exclusively for commercial real estate law. Developed with former practicing real estate lawyers, it accelerates complex due diligence by up to 70% while delivering legal‑grade precision. We’ve just raised a $60m Series B to accelerate our UK/US expansion. We’re trusted by leading firms like Goodwin and BCLP to remove the busywork so legal teams can focus on what they do best: applying sharp legal judgment, delivering standout client service, and getting deals over the line faster.

Working at Orbital means joining a team that’s reimagining how real estate transactions get done - moving fast, working collaboratively, and giving people the ownership to make a real impact from day one. You’ll build the tools that fix how the world’s largest asset class changes hands. We’re moving property transactions away from manual document checks toward an automated AI solution that thinks like a real estate lawyer. You won’t just execute builds - you’ll use your professional judgement to direct product development and shape the foundations of our next growth phase. The opportunity is real, and you’ll have genuine influence over what we create.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead the development of key product features from concept to production, setting the technical direction and architecture.
• Own projects end-to-end, guiding small teams of two to four engineers to deliver reliable production systems.
• Direct AI coding agents to generate, iterate and refine production‑quality software.
• Work with a stack commonly including TypeScript, React, PostgreSQL and Python, reviewing and shaping code produced by AI agents.
• Rapidly turn new ideas into customer‑facing features, often within days rather than months.
• Continuously improve engineering practices by adopting AI‑assisted development and modern software workflows.

The Impact You’ll Have

Your work will help professionals and individuals understand property transactions before they incur massive legal fees. By building for where models are going, you'll contribute to a system that handles over 1 trillion tokens and aims to accelerate legal work by 70%. You're not just solving toy problems - you're fixing a £multi‑billion global market that’s currently stuck in archaic processes. Your technical decisions will directly determine how we scale from processing 200,000 transactions to transforming the entire industry.

What We’re Looking For

• A deep conviction that AI will reshape industries and a desire to build at that frontier.
• Evidence of reaching a high level of excellence in a professional, academic, or personal domain.
• A generalist mindset with the willingness to work across product, design, and AI boundaries.
• Experience building modern agentic systems or reasoning through complex ML products.
• A track record of working on products generating £millions in ARR with high growth.
• Rapid career progression - such as moving from junior to senior level in under five years.
• The ability to critique AI‑generated output with high standards and technical taste.

What We Offer

• Very competitive salary range plus equity options in a Series B startup.
• Hybrid working (1-2 days per week in our Farringdon office).
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays and a personal development budget.
• Free lunch on Wednesdays and a Deliveroo budget for late nights in the office.
• A cycle‑to‑work scheme and flexible working hours.

Reasons We Might Not Be For You

We don’t have established machine learning infrastructure or a polished corporate playbook - so if you need a well‑defined role with clear boundaries, you might find the ambiguity frustrating. The pace is intense and the standards are uncomfortably high - which won’t suit someone looking for a predictable, low‑intensity environment. We don’t have a traditional career ladder or the brand recognition of a household name - so we’re a better fit for those motivated by ownership rather than title or status.

Security is everyone’s responsibility at Orbital. We ask all team members to follow our security policies, complete regular awareness training, and handle sensitive data with care in line with ISO 27001 standards. Spot something unusual? Reporting risks or incidents quickly helps us maintain the strong culture of security and compliance we all depend on.

At Orbital, we’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We especially welcome applications from people who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. Even if you don’t meet every single requirement, or if the right role isn’t listed yet, we’d still love to hear from you.

This hiring range is a reasonable estimate of the base pay range for this position at the time of posting. Pay is based on several factors, which may include job‑related knowledge, skills, experience, and business requirements.