Product Engineer

Polaron is a spin-out from Imperial College London, founded by Dr Isaac Squires, Dr Steve Kench, and Dr Sam Cooper. Our mission is to harness engineering, artificial intelligence, and materials science to design the materials of the future. Our vision is to become the world leader at the interface between AI and materials, combining scientific rigour with engineering pragmatism to enable the next generation of sustainable, high-performance materials. We work to accelerate how materials are developed, designed, and manufactured to help build a more sustainable future. We are developing a cloud-based SaaS platform that empowers materials engineers to use state-of-the-art image-based AI without friction, helping them generate insights and accelerate innovation with minimal effort.

Our team is based in East London (Shoreditch Exchange, Hoxton), currently comprised of 12 people and growing fast. We are backed by strong research partnerships and offer a modern stack including TypeScript, React, Next.js, Express, Prisma, Python (PyTorch), PostgreSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, and Terraform.

We are building tools that enable materials scientists and manufacturers to leverage state-of-the-art AI vision models directly in the web browser. Our application consists of:

• A data-intensive visual interface for exploring, interacting with, and analyzing complex datasets (including high-resolution image data) directly in the browser
• Interactive visualization and analysis tools that combine 2D, 3D, and graph plotting
• A computational orchestration layer connecting frontend with machine learning models for sophisticated analyses and simulations
• Scalable AI infrastructure for training, serving, and executing complex ML workflows across distributed environments

To support rapid product and infrastructure scaling, we are hiring a Product Engineer who will work at the intersection of UX, product, and technical execution, shaping how customers interact with frontier technology in materials science. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role to build core technology that enables advanced materials development and manufacturing. You will have the freedom to make architectural decisions, work closely with scientists and engineers, and see your code power breakthroughs in industry and research. The role reports to the Head of Engineering and offers autonomy and influence over technical decisions and product direction.

A snapshot of your first 6 months at Polaron:

• Month 1 – Understand and Contribute: Learn Polaron's product architecture and design system; Deliver scoped product improvements; Build confidence in deploying to production and gathering feedback.
• Month 3 – Take Ownership: Lead the development of a complete user-facing feature; Collaborate with Forward Deployed Engineers and scientists to turn a customer need into a working product; Improve usability and design quality across the app.
• Month 6 – Drive Impact: Own a key area of the product end-to-end (e.g., image canvas, analysis, workflow builder); Deliver measurable improvements to usability, performance, and visual quality; Shape UX principles and front-end standards as the team scales.

We value transparency and fast feedback at every step.

Requirements:

You're a product-minded engineer who takes pride in building elegant, intuitive interfaces for complex technical systems. You have:

• 3+ years of experience building modern web applications with React (or an equivalent framework) and TypeScript. If you love writing full-stack TypeScript and modelling complex state with types, this role is for you!
• Strong UX and design sensibility, with the ability to turn loose requirements into intuitive, user-friendly features.
• A desire to write reliable, maintainable, well-tested code, while being willing to rapidly prototype features when needed.
• Experience building backend APIs, and understand how to design clean, reliable interfaces. We use Node, Express, and Prisma, so experience with those (or similar frameworks) is a plus.

Bonus points for:

• Experience with data-intensive or visualization-heavy interfaces (D3, canvas, Three.js, WebGL, or similar).
• Familiarity with Python or scientific/engineering workflows.
• Previous work in SaaS or technical B2B products.

Mindset and values:

We are looking for someone who:

• Is user-obsessed and driven to turn complex tech into intuitive experiences.
• Iterates fast, values feedback, and is comfortable prototyping or pivoting.
• Balances design taste with engineering rigor.
• Communicates openly and collaborates across disciplines.
• Thrives in a startup environment: ambiguity, ownership, and rapid learning.

Team and culture:

You will join a small, tight-knit group of engineers and scientists building Polaron's product and culture. We operate with:

• High trust and ownership.
• Pragmatism over dogma.
• Curiosity, humility, and scientific discipline.
• A focus on quality, impact, and long-term maintainability.

What we value at Polaron:

• STEM mindset: genuine curiosity for science and the physical world.
• Hunger to learn: proactive, self-driven, and impact-oriented.
• Pragmatism: you prefer solutions that work over theoretical perfection.
• Low ego and empathy: you lift others up, you listen, you share knowledge.
• Long-term commitment: you want to grow with the company and shape its journey.

Benefits:

• Salary: £75k - £95k depending on experience.
• Equity: meaningful stock options in a growing company.
• Holidays: 25 days + 2 festive leave days.
• Perks: gym membership, free barista coffee.
• Location: Shoreditch Exchange (Hoxton, London).