Head of Engineering

Head of Engineering - Applied AIBuild the Engineering Organisation Powering AI for Real EstateLocation: LondonAbout Smart BricksSmart Bricks is building the intelligence layer for real estate.Every year, trillions of dollars are invested across residential, commercial and alternative real estate using fragmented systems, disconnected data and manual workflows. We're building an AI-native platform that enables investors, developers, lenders, governments and Fortune 500 companies to source opportunities, underwrite investments, perform due diligence and manage portfolios using AI.Alongside our software platform, we're building an Applied AI Lab that works directly with some of the world's largest real estate organisations to redesign complex institutional workflows using AI.Every customer engagement generates institutional knowledge. Every deployment strengthens the platform. Every improvement compounds across every future customer.We've raised over $5 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), and are backed by some of the world's leading technology ecosystems, including Techstars, Google, NVIDIA and Microsoft through their AI and startup programmes.We're now building our founding leadership team in London. Our London team is based at Balderton Capital, one of Europe's leading venture capital firms, putting us alongside some of Europe's most ambitious founders, investors and technology companies.We're looking for an exceptional Head of Engineering to build the engineering organisation and technical foundations behind the next generation of Smart Bricks.Why exceptional engineers join us🚀 $5M+ raised, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)🤝 Backed by Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Techstars🏢 Building our core team in London at Balderton Capital🤖 Building production AI agents and infrastructure, not another LLM wrapper🌍 Solving problems for some of the world's largest real estate organisations🏗️ Opportunity to build an engineering organisation from the ground upThe RoleThis isn't a role for someone who wants to manage an established engineering organisation.You'll build one.As Head of Engineering, you'll own the technical foundations of Smart Bricks: the architecture, engineering organisation, infrastructure and standards that underpin everything we build.You'll work directly with the Founder & CEO, Head of Product and Head of Applied AI to turn complex institutional workflows into scalable AI-native software.In the early days, you'll be deeply hands-on: writing production code, making architecture decisions, reviewing pull requests, debugging systems and shipping alongside the team.As we scale, you'll recruit and lead an exceptional engineering organisation around you.The decisions you make in your first year will influence every product we build, every enterprise customer we serve and every engineer who joins after you.What You'll OwnBuild the Engineering OrganisationRecruit and lead the founding engineering team in London.You'll define our hiring bar, engineering principles, development practices and technical culture from the beginning.We're building a culture centred around:Ownership and craftsmanshipFirst-principles thinkingSimplicity and pragmatismSpeed without sacrificing qualityIntellectual curiosityHigh agency and low egoThe goal is simple: build an engineering organisation where exceptional people do the best work of their careers.Architect the Smart Bricks PlatformOwn the technical architecture of our institutional AI platform.You'll design foundations that allow us to experiment rapidly today without constraining what Smart Bricks can become tomorrow.That includes:Agent orchestration and workflow enginesKnowledge and retrieval infrastructureData and reasoning systemsEnterprise APIs and integrationsEvaluation infrastructureObservability and monitoringSecurity and permissionsDeveloper toolingCloud and deployment infrastructureYou'll make the architectural decisions that determine how the platform scales across customers, markets, asset classes and use cases.Build AI-Native InfrastructureTraditional SaaS architecture isn't enough for what we're building.You'll design infrastructure for software in which AI agents reason, retrieve information, call tools, execute workflows and collaborate with humans.That means building and making pragmatic decisions around:Agent execution and orchestrationMulti-agent systemsMemory and context managementRetrieval and knowledge systemsHuman-in-the-loop workflowsTool calling and MCPModel routingEvaluation and reliabilityEnterprise AI deploymentWe care about what works in production, not what's fashionable.Turn Applied AI Into PlatformOur Applied AI Lab works directly with customers on some of their hardest problems.Your job is to turn what we learn into product infrastructure.You'll work closely with the Head of Applied AI to continuously answer:What should become part of the platform?A workflow solved for one customer should become a capability we can deploy for hundreds.Over time, new enterprise deployments should increasingly be powered by reusable platform capabilities rather than bespoke engineering.Build for Enterprise ScaleOur customers trust us with high-value investment decisions, proprietary data and mission-critical workflows.Enterprise quality therefore isn't something we add later.You'll build for:Reliability and performanceSecurity and data isolationExplainability and provenanceAuditabilityObservabilityScalabilityExtensibilityThe foundations you build should become one of Smart Bricks' greatest competitive advantages.What Success Looks LikeWithin your first 12 months, you'll have:Designed and launched the first generation of the Smart Bricks institutional AI platformBuilt the founding engineering team in LondonEstablished the engineering culture, principles and technical standards of the companyBuilt production AI infrastructure supporting multiple enterprise deploymentsCreated reusable platform capabilities from customer deploymentsSignificantly reduced the engineering effort required to onboard new enterprise customersEstablished world-class evaluation, observability and reliability practices for our AI systemsBecome the trusted technical counterpart to the Founder, Product and Applied AIBuilt the foundations for an engineering organisation capable of scaling from a handful of exceptional engineers to dozensSuccess won't be measured by lines of code.It will be measured by how quickly Smart Bricks can learn, ship and scale.Who We're Looking ForWe're looking for a builder who can become an engineering leader — not an engineering manager who used to build.You've taken products from zero to one, made foundational architecture decisions, written production code and hired exceptional engineers.You move naturally between first-principles technical thinking and pragmatic execution.You'll likely have:7–15 years building AI infrastructure, distributed systems, enterprise software, developer platforms or similarly complex systemsLed engineering through a high-growth phase at an exceptional startup or scaleupExperience building or scaling an engineering team from single digitsShipped multiple products from zero to one, ideally used by real enterprise customersDeep hands-on architecture experience across areas such as agentic systems, workflow platforms, knowledge systems, distributed systems, infrastructure products or developer toolingExceptional software engineering fundamentals across systems design, data modelling, APIs, performance, reliability and securityReal fluency with the modern AI stack: LLMs, retrieval, vector databases, agent orchestration, MCP, evaluation frameworks and cloud-native infrastructureExperience setting an extremely high hiring and technical bar while remaining close enough to the code to debug production yourselfWorked directly with product teams and customer-facing organisationsThe ability to communicate complex technical decisions clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholdersYou're equally comfortable writing production code, designing architecture, reviewing pull requests, debugging live systems, interviewing engineers and sitting with an enterprise customer to understand their hardest technical problem.Experience in real estate isn't required.We care far more about exceptional engineers who enjoy solving difficult problems and building systems from first principles.The Person Who Will Thrive HereYou probably won't enjoy Smart Bricks if you're looking for a mature engineering organisation with established processes, clearly defined boundaries and a roadmap handed to you.You'll thrive here if you want to:Build rather than inheritOperate with significant autonomyWork directly with the FounderMake consequential technical decisionsStay deeply technical while building a teamShip extremely quicklyWork directly with customersRecruit people better than yourselfBuild something that could define a categoryWe expect an unusually high level of ownership.In return, you'll have an unusually high level of influence.