Tech
Founding Software Engineer
Join the rocket ship redefining commercial insurance with AI
nettle is a fast-growing, VC-backed Insurtech building one of the most compelling real-world applications of AI: transforming how commercial insurers assess risk - 5x faster, more consistently, and at a far greater scale than ever before
We have strong product-market fit and are scaling quickly
$2m pre-seed raised in 2025, with a significant seed round planned for Q1 2026
Six-figure annual revenue with seven figures in active pipeline
Insurtech of the Year 2025 (Finance Awards) and European Insurtech of the Year 2025 (Guidewire Awards)
Live production deployments with major global insurers
Founding team with experience from McKinsey, QuantumBlack, Meta, Slack ,and LinkedIn
About the Role
We're nettle, a VC-backed insurtech startup building AI-powered software that's transforming how commercial insurers assess risk. Risk engineers are the backbone of multi-million-dollar underwriting decisions, but they're drowning in manual processes. Our agentic platform cuts days of work down to minutes, supercharging teams to 5x their output. We're already live with major global insurers across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, and we need another exceptional engineer to help us deploy into some of the world's largest insurance organisations.
As a member of the founding team, you'll work directly with the founders and our engineering team across the full stack. This isn't a "build features in isolation" role. You'll ship AI-powered product, own enterprise deployments into client infrastructure, and sit at the boundary of engineering and customer delivery. Your day might go from pairing on an agentic workflow in the morning to debugging a DNS issue in a client's on-prem environment after lunch. You'll shape our technical foundation, engineering culture, and decision-making processes from the ground up.
What You'll Accomplish
Ship AI features end-to-end, from prototype to production, working closely with founders and your favourite AI engineering tools
Own enterprise deployments for global insurance clients, managing Docker-based infrastructure across multiple regions (US, UK, Europe, Middle East)
Work directly with client IT and infosec teams to navigate security reviews, data residency requirements, and network configurations
Drive critical technical decisions and establish development processes that 10x our output as a team
Translate real customer feedback and field observations into product improvements, closing the loop between what users need and what we build
Help grow the engineering team by shaping our hiring bar and interviewing candidates
What We're Looking For
Must-haves
7+ years of software engineering experience
Strong Python backend expertise (Flask/Django) and frontend skills (TypeScript/React/Next.js)
Experience with on-premise or hybrid enterprise deployments, not just cloud. You've shipped software into client infrastructure.
Comfortable engaging with technical client stakeholders (IT, infosec, DevOps) and representing engineering in customer-facing settings
Hands-on experience with Docker, networking, and infrastructure debugging in production environments
Track record of building products from scratch and getting them into the hands of real users
Nice-to-haves
Higher education (BSc, MSc, PhD) or research background
Previous experience as an early engineer at a startup that scaled quickly
Recent work involving LLM integrations or agentic workflows
Knowledge of PostgreSQL, Redis, and database optimisation
Open source contributions, technical blog posts, or talks
How We Work
We're a small team that operates with high trust and high ownership. We use AI tools daily to move faster than teams 5x our size. We'd rather ship something imperfect today than plan something perfect for next quarter. You'll be in the office 4 days a week at our Shoreditch space, working side-by-side with the people building the company.
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive base salary
Founding team equity stake in a category-defining, VC-backed startup
Top-tier office in Shoreditch with great coffee, brand new gym, and generous perks
Weekly team lunches, learning budget, regular offsites, and full health and pension benefits
Interview Process
Culture interview (30 min) — Chat with Jamie (Founding Software Engineer) or Julio (Chief of Staff) on values, working style, and how you'd contribute to the team
Intro call (30 min) — Chat with Katya (CTO) to walk through the role, your background, and mutual fit
Technical deep-dive (60 min) — Conversation with Jamie (Founding Software Engineer) on system design, technical judgment, and real-world problem-solving
Take-home exercise — A short, practical task that mirrors the kind of work you'd actually do here
Total estimated time commitment: ~3h min
Ready to Join?
If you want real ownership, steep responsibility, and the chance to build a transformational AI company, we would love to hear from you.
