Founding AI Engineer

We're building the technology that will change how consumers buy and sell furniture.Resale is one of the biggest shifts in consumer behaviour of our generation. Fashion has been transformed by it. Electronics too. But furniture, one of the largest, most valuable categories in every home, has been left behind. It's big, bulky, hard to photograph, hard to price, hard to trust and hard to move. Most of it still gets dumped, sold for nothing, or sent to landfill or the incinerator.That's not a furniture problem. It's a technology problem. And it's wide open.Sofalistic is a resale technology company. We started with the hardest category there is, and we're building the AI, platforms and experiences to make buying and selling pre-loved furniture online as easy as buying new. Trust, pricing, logistics, fraud prevention, payments, disputes: we've built the hard parts that others avoid.Now we're scaling fast, and building the next generation of AI-powered resale experiences.The ambition is simple: to become the technology that powers furniture resale, in the UK and beyond.The roleWe're looking for our first engineer: a builder with a founder's brain. Someone who will own our AI and technology from day one, and grow into leading our tech team.This isn't a job where you wait for tickets. You'll sit next to our CEO and co-founder, Marc, and help decide what we build, why, and how fast. Some days you'll ship three things before lunch. Other days you'll be the one saying "we're solving the wrong problem."Years of experience matter less to us than what you've built and how you think.How we buildAI isn't a feature for us. It's how we build. Claude Code writes much of our code. We architect, direct, review, test and ship. An idea in the morning is a working prototype by the afternoon.Everything below is live, used by real people, and built this way by a tiny team:AI dispute resolution handling real buyer and seller disputes end to endComputer vision that reads contact details hidden in photos and shuts down organised fraud ringsIntelligent seller automation: sold alerts, offer negotiation and listing refresh across email, SMS and pushA logistics platform replacing spreadsheets and manual bookingsNative iOS and Android appsImagine what we'll build with you.What's nextWe're only scratching the surface of what AI can do for resale. How furniture is discovered, listed, priced, trusted and delivered is all still up for reinvention, and we intend to lead it.You'll help decide what we build next, and the experiences no one has imagined yet for this category.You might be the one if youThink like a founder. You see the business, not just the code. You spot opportunities, challenge ideas (including ours) and care whether something actually moves the needle.Build like a doer. You'd rather ship something today and improve it tomorrow than plan it for a month.Are AI-native. You're exceptional with Claude Code or similar, you direct AI with real skill, and you know when it's wrong.Are technically sharp. You're comfortable in PHP and JavaScript/TypeScript, with a solid grasp of APIs, databases, security and production systems.Take production seriously. We move real money. You test properly, ship safely and stay calm when something breaks.Can't stop thinking about it. The best ideas come in the shower, on a walk, at 10pm. You genuinely love building, and you want to build something that matters.Own it completely. No egos, no "that's not my job."Bonus if youHave started something of your own, a company, a product or a side project people actually useHave worked with Next.js, Flutter or CloudflareHave built marketplace, payments, computer vision or fraud-prevention systemsWhat you get£70,000 salaryShare options, so you own a real piece of what you help buildA genuine founding role, with real influence over product, technology and directionTop-spec kit and every AI tool you needA clear path to leading engineering as we growThe chance to define the technology for an entire category, and to look back and say "I built that"How we workWe build together, not in silos. You'll be in our Bournemouth office most of the week, working alongside the founders, with one day a week from home. Flexibility grows as the team does.How to applySkip the cover letter. Show us something you've built with AI: a repo, a live demo, a 2-minute Loom, or just a few paragraphs on what you built and how. If your best work is under NDA, tell us about it without the confidential bits. We want to know what the AI did and what you did.And tell us one thing you'd build or change at Sofalistic if you joined tomorrow.Not sure you tick every box? Apply anyway. What you've built matters more than your CV.Our process: a call to get to know each other, a build session with the founders for shortlisted candidates, then an offer. Fast.