Software Engineer, Backend in London

About us

Encord is the universal data layer for AI that helps 300+ AI teams train and run models on the right data. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates, and evaluates data across the full AI lifecycle, from development through production. Trusted by Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath, Zipline, and more.

We're an ambitious team of 100+ working at the frontier of AI and have raised $60M in Series C funding from Wellington Management, CRV, Next47 and Y Combinator.

The role

We're looking for an outstanding engineer to push our platform to the next level. You'll join us at a crucial stage of accelerated development for the company, product and team. As part of a small, highly collaborative group, you'll drive our product and team to new heights. Encord is growing rapidly, with our product as the key driver of that growth. A year ago, we were a team of 25; now, we’re 60 and continuing to accelerate.

What you'll do

• Be a part of the small team that has built a product that our customers love and consistently rate as the best in the market.
• Have a direct and tangible impact on customers and, in turn, noticeably affect the trajectory of the company.
• Work autonomously and take end-to-end ownership of your projects. From product, design and architectural decisions, all the way to deployment, monitoring and measuring impact on users. You will work across the stack, covering everything from deployment to styling. We expect each other to take initiative, be proactive in problem-solving, and continuously seek improvements.
• Tackle complex domains and immense scale with simple solutions.

Who we're looking for

• You've seen and built a lot. You have personally developed and maintained multiple systems from scratch, and you know what trade-offs are involved in building reliable, performant software at speed.
• You want your work to have a tangible outcome for people. You're not satisfied with building products that do not see the light of day.
• You are a builder. You enjoy all aspects of building not only software but a complete product, and are comfortable moving across the stack when necessary.
• You enjoy problem-solving and thinking from first principles, and are always ready to pick up new skills and build quickly.
• You're happy to tackle problems without a predefined, clear definition or obvious solution, and are excited to have autonomy to make decisions as you go.
• You understand that being a member of a high-performing team requires two items. You contribute your best work and help others contribute their best. You'll always lend a helping hand when needed and level up those around you.

Experience requirements

• Strong experience building large-scale backend infrastructure applications.
• Deep fluency in at least one high-level language (we use Python and TypeScript, but we care more about depth than the specific language).
• Experience improving quality through code reviews, testing, rollout, and monitoring.
• Experience with prompt engineering, agent orchestration, and the ability to integrate AI tools to optimise workflows and drive measurable impact.
• Experience in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or Physical AI is a plus.

Tech stack

We are technology-agnostic at Encord and are not looking for experience across all of these — as long as you're open to learning, please apply.

• Backend: Python
• Frontend: TypeScript and React
• Deployment: Kubernetes
• Infrastructure: GCP
• Machine learning: PyTorch, CUDA, Ray

Why Encord

• Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup.
• Strong in-person culture — most of the team works from our London office 4+ days/week.
• 25 days annual leave + UK public holidays.
• Annual learning & development budget.
• Travel for customer visits, events, and conferences across the UK and Europe.
• Company lunches twice a week.
• Monthly socials & bi-annual team offsites.