Founding Engineer

2 weeks ago

London, Greater London, United Kingdom Arou Full time £60,000 - £80,000 per year

Who We Are

Arou is a new way for adults to make real friends. When you join, you're instantly placed in a small group chat with three others
Around You
- same age, location and similar interests. It's an instant friendship group, and we give you the tools to actually keep those friendships going.

Think of it as
WhatsApp meets Tinder BFF (minus the swiping)
- built for people who want to connect deeply, not just collect contacts.

In the last few months, we've grown
organically
to over
1,500 community members
,
150+ on our waitlist
, and
1,200+ TikTok followers
- all through word of mouth. We've been testing multiple audiences and channels (including a 500-person WhatsApp community) to find the best path to sustainable growth before launch.

Check out https://arou.community/mobile-app to learn more - and bonus points if you join the waitlist

The Role

We're building our founding team and looking for an ambitious, thoughtful engineer who wants to be part of shaping the product from the ground up.

You'll be our first engineer, collaborating closely with the founder and product/design to build the MVP, shape early technical choices with guidance, and work alongside a junior engineer. This role suits someone who enjoys early experimentation and wants to see their work directly influence how people make friends.

Who You Are

  • You have a drive to build products that genuinely improve people's lives.
  • You care deeply about community and connection.
  • You're product-minded
    and
    commercial - you want to build something people love
    and
    that works as a business.
  • You have a strong bar for quality but know when to ship and iterate.
  • You're pragmatic, curious, and comfortable learning fast.
  • You've got experience as a software engineer (we're using React Native, but we value mindset over specific stack).
  • You're calm under pressure, motivated by purpose, and enjoy collaborating with passionate, driven people.

Commitment & Equity

This is an
equity-only
role for now, with paid salary and increased equity once we raise.

Everyone on the founding team currently has full-time roles, so this is treated as a passion project - we work evenings or weekends (when we can), with weekly syncs to stay aligned and move fast.

You'll have full ownership from day one, a real voice in product and technical decisions, and the opportunity to shape something that will impact millions.

It's hard work, but you should be excited about building something of your own.

Why Join

  • You'll help build a product that tackles one of the biggest modern challenges:
    loneliness
    .
  • You'll join at
    Day 1
    , right as we launch our MVP and start scaling.
  • You'll work alongside founders who've built at some of the most exciting, fast-growing startups across Product, Design, and Operations.
  • You'll be part of a small, close-knit founding team with ambition, heart, and a bias for action.

If this sounds exciting, drop us a note at

or share your CV - we'll grab a virtual coffee to chat.

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