Founding Engineer

Founding Engineer | London (Onsite) | £80k+ and founding equity package | No sponsorship

About Spinal

Spinal is a VC-backed, early-stage startup co-founded by our CTO (Andrew) and our CEO (Guiv). We're building an AI platform to automate finance operations for modern companies. We're starting with accounts receivable—automating the process of collecting revenue companies are already owed. We want to eliminate the manual work that slows down finance teams.

What you'll do

• Own the revenue engine
  . Build systems that parse usage-based contracts, automatically generate invoices from consumption data, and manage collections. Design APIs that integrate with billing platforms, create LLM-powered contract interpretation, and build data pipelines handling real-time usage signals.
• Build cost attribution
  . Create infrastructure that captures cost signals from APIs, compute, and human operations—then ties them directly to invoices for instant margin visibility. Work across cloud provider APIs, build event streaming systems, and design data models mapping costs to revenue in real-time.
• Shape the product from zero
  . Join as founding engineer alongside CTO. Drive architecture decisions, technology choices, and product direction. Your early decisions define how we scale.
• Integrate with finance systems
  . Build connectors to accounting platforms, payment processors, and CRMs. Design systems that fit finance team workflows, not the other way around.
• Ship fast on customer feedback
  . Deploy features directly to early customers, iterate based on their needs, talk to CFOs to understand problems. Build solutions that eliminate hours of manual work each week.
• Set engineering standards
  . Establish development practices, testing approaches, and deployment processes. Build for reliability—finance operations can't have downtime.

What we're looking for

• You have the chops
  : 5+ years building and scaling systems at places that matter. You've made complex engineering decisions under pressure and have the battle scars to prove it.
• You can build anything:
  Full-stack web development with serious backend chops. You're fluent in TypeScript/JavaScript and Python, comfortable architecting REST APIs with FastAPI, building reactive UIs with , and designing data models across PostgreSQL and ClickHouse. You don't need specialists—you ARE the specialist.
• You're entrepreneurial
  : You're ready to ditch the Big Tech playbook and embrace startup speed. You understand that "that's not my job" doesn't exist here—everything is your job if it needs doing, and that's exactly what excites you.
• You think like a user
  : You want to build through a user-centric lens. You care about product and design decisions, not just technical ones. You get excited about 0-to-1 thinking instead of optimizing existing funnels.
• You lead from the trenches
  : You're committed to the mission. You think on your feet, push through roadblocks, and inspire teammates to do the same. You've been the person others turn to when things get tough.
• You're a team player
  : You're collaborative, competitive, and encouraging. You celebrate group wins and know that the best engineering happens when everyone's pulling in the same direction.

How we work

This isn't a place for autopilot work.
At Spinal, we move quickly, tackle complex problems, and care about building things the right way. We value focus, speed, and urgency—and we're looking for people who get energy from that kind of environment.

So yes,
we proudly are in-office
. Why? Because:

• You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with exceptional people
• Decisions happen live, not in backlogged async threads
• There's a buzzing energy in the office. Hit the whiteboard with anyone here and you'll understand why.
• Awesome office in London Bridge
• Demo Fridays: we face the demo gods every week— and celebrate the week together

What we offer

• ESOP Equity. Everyone is an actual owner.
• 25 Paid holidays + public holidays
• Health and Dental insurance plans
• Autonomy, speed and full visibility into company building
• Cool London Bridge office
• £2k IT budget