At a Glance
- Tasks: Join our team to build cutting-edge web crawlers for AI data acquisition.
- Company: Poolside, a pioneering company in AI and software development.
- Benefits: Enjoy remote work, flexible hours, generous vacation, and health insurance.
- Other info: Collaborative culture with a focus on innovation and personal growth.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on the future of AI and software development.
- Qualifications: Experience in distributed systems and large-scale data extraction.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
About Poolside
In this decade, the world will create Artificial General Intelligence. There will only be a small number of companies who will achieve this. Their ability to stack advantages and pull ahead will define the winners. These companies will move faster than anyone else. They will attract the world's most capable talent. They will be on the forefront of applied research, engineering, infrastructure and deployment at scale. They will continue to scale their training to larger & more capable models. They will be given the right to raise large amounts of capital along their journey to enable this. They will create powerful economic engines. They will obsess over the success of their users and customers.
Poolside’s Mission
Poolside exists to be this company: to build a world where AI will be the engine behind economically valuable work and scientific progress. We believe the fastest way to reach AGI lies in accelerating software development itself, by reshaping the developer experience with agentic systems, coding assistants, and the frontier models that power them. We deploy these systems directly into the development environments of security‑conscious enterprises.
About Our Team
We were founded in the US and have our home there, but our team is distributed across Europe and North America. We get our fix of in‑person collaboration (and croissants) in Paris each month for 3 days, always Monday‑Wednesday, with an open invitation to stay the whole week. We also do longer off‑sites once a year. Our team is a multidisciplinary blend of research, engineering, and business experts. What unites us is our deep care for what we build together. We’re in a race that requires hard work, intellectual curiosity, and obsession; to balance this intensity, we’ve assembled a team of low ego and kind‑hearted individuals who have built the special culture Poolside has. By building collaboratively and with intention, we create a compounding effect that moves the entire company forward towards our mission: reaching AGI through intelligence systems built for software development.
About The Role
You’ll be working alongside our pre‑training data team, focused on one of the most foundational challenges in training frontier LLMs: acquiring the best possible pre‑training data. The data we collect is upstream of everything. It directly shapes the capability of the models we train. As our first dedicated data acquisition engineer, you will spearhead and evolve systems that crawl the web at massive scale, rapidly ingest data from strategic partnerships, and build specialized tooling to maximize recall from high‑value sources. You’ll collaborate closely with pre‑training data researchers and engineers to ensure that our sourcing of data maps to our training needs, to ensure we have the most capable pre‑trained models.
YOUR MISSION
To deliver the highest‑quality, diverse, and most comprehensive data corpus to fuel the pre‑training of frontier models for software development.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and operate a large‑scale web crawler responsible for acquiring all openly accessible data on the internet
- Develop specialized deep crawlers targeting high‑value sources to improve recall and coverage
- In collaboration with data researchers, own a long‑term road map for data acquisition
- Build observability, monitoring, and debugging tooling to ensure reliability and transparency across crawl infrastructure
- Collaborate with pre‑training, post‑training, and evaluations teams to align data acquisition priorities with model training needs
- Build high‑throughput ingestion pipelines for rapidly onboarding partner data and evaluating it for quality
Skills & Experience
- Strong distributed systems background with proven experience building and operating large‑scale infrastructure — data pipelines, web crawlers, or similar
- Proficiency in Python, and comfortable optimizing performance and debugging complex systems under production conditions
- Hands‑on experience with web crawling or large‑scale data extraction: understanding of HTTP protocols, distributed job queues, and data parsing at scale
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker) for deploying and managing high‑throughput workloads
- Awareness of the non‑technical dimensions of internet‑scale crawling: data privacy, robots.txt adherence, and responsible crawl practices
Nice to have:
- Prior experience pre‑training LLMs
- Experience in building trillion‑scale SOTA pre‑training datasets
- Experience translating research to production at scale
Process
- Intro call with one of our Founding Engineers
- Technical Interview(s) with one of our Members of Engineering
- Team fit call with the People team
- Final interview with one of our Founding Engineers
Benefits
- Fully remote work & flexible hours
- 37 days/year of vacation & holidays
- 16 weeks of flexible, full‑pay parental leave
- Health insurance allowance for you & dependents
- Company‑provided equipment
- Well‑being, always‑be‑learning & home office allowances
- Frequent team get togethers
- Diverse & inclusive people‑first culture
Member of Engineering (Pre-training / Data Acquisition) in London employer: poolside
At Poolside, we are committed to fostering a dynamic and inclusive work environment that prioritises employee well-being and growth. With fully remote work options, generous vacation policies, and a culture that values collaboration and intellectual curiosity, our team thrives on innovation while enjoying the flexibility to balance personal and professional commitments. Join us in Paris for monthly in-person collaborations and experience a supportive atmosphere where your contributions directly impact the future of AI development.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Member of Engineering (Pre-training / Data Acquisition) in London
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to people in the industry, especially those at Poolside. A friendly chat can go a long way in making you stand out. Plus, it shows your genuine interest in the company and its mission.
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for your interviews by diving deep into the role. Understand the challenges of data acquisition and how your skills can help tackle them. Show us that you’re not just a fit for the job, but that you’re excited about contributing to our mission of reaching AGI.
✨Tip Number 3
Don’t underestimate the power of follow-ups! After your interviews, drop a quick thank-you note. It’s a simple gesture that keeps you fresh in our minds and shows your enthusiasm for the position.
✨Tip Number 4
Apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets the attention it deserves. Plus, we love seeing candidates who take the initiative to engage directly with us.
We think you need these skills to ace Member of Engineering (Pre-training / Data Acquisition) in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Your Passion for AI:When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for AI and software development shine through. We want to see that you’re not just looking for a job, but that you genuinely care about the mission of reaching AGI and how your skills can contribute to that.
Tailor Your Experience:Make sure to highlight your relevant experience in building large-scale systems or web crawlers. We love seeing specific examples of your work, so don’t hold back on the details! Show us how your background aligns with the role and our goals.
Be Clear and Concise:Keep your application clear and to the point. We appreciate well-structured applications that are easy to read. Use bullet points where necessary and avoid jargon unless it’s relevant to the role. Remember, clarity is key!
Apply Through Our Website:We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it shows you’re proactive and keen to join our team!
How to prepare for a job interview at poolside
✨Know Your Stuff
Make sure you brush up on your knowledge of distributed systems and large-scale infrastructure. Be ready to discuss your experience with data pipelines, web crawlers, and any relevant projects you've worked on. This role is all about acquiring the best pre-training data, so showing your technical expertise will definitely impress.
✨Show Your Curiosity
Poolside values intellectual curiosity, so don’t hesitate to ask questions during the interview. Inquire about their current data acquisition strategies or how they tackle challenges in web crawling. This shows that you're genuinely interested in the role and eager to contribute to their mission.
✨Demonstrate Collaboration Skills
Since this position involves working closely with researchers and engineers, highlight your teamwork experiences. Share examples of how you've collaborated on projects, especially in a multidisciplinary environment. Poolside is looking for kind-hearted individuals who can work well with others, so make sure to convey that.
✨Understand the Bigger Picture
Familiarise yourself with Poolside's mission and how your role fits into it. Be prepared to discuss how acquiring high-quality data impacts the training of frontier models. Showing that you understand the importance of your work in the context of AGI will set you apart from other candidates.
