Lead Platform Engineer

Full time, permanent - Remote-first (UK) - £65,000 to £85,000 depending on experience

We built a platform that makes AI actually work for people - not as a chatbot they try once, but as personal coach that changes how they think, decide and work, measured across an entire organisation. It runs in regulated industries where getting it wrong matters: financial services, pharmaceuticals, education, healthcare. We need someone who can own it, evolve it, and build it into the product that defines how organisations develop human capability in the AI era.

If you write code with AI, think about products like a founder, care about what technology does to people's lives, and want to work at the intersection of machine learning and human potential, this is the role.

About Atheni

Most organisations bought AI tools and got nothing back. Licences sit unused. Adoption stalls at surface level. Boards cannot see whether their investment is changing how people work or just adding noise. Atheni exists to fix that.

Our platform gives every person in an organisation a personal AI coach, a structured development pathway, and missions delivered inside the tools they already use. For leaders, it provides a live dashboard showing whether AI capability is actually growing across their teams - not usage metrics, but genuine shifts in how people think, decide and work. We have above 90% adoption within 90 days, in a market where meaningful AI use remains in the low single digits.

We work with FE colleges, pharmaceutical companies, private equity firms, manufacturers, and professional services businesses. We are mid-raise, launching publicly this autumn, and the methodology is proven. What comes next is scale - and the platform has to be ready for it.

What this role actually is

This is not a ticket-clearing job. You will own the entire Atheni platform: the architecture, the product direction, the intelligence engines, the integrations, the infrastructure, the security posture, and the roadmap. You work directly with the founders. You have a seat at the table on every decision about what the product becomes.

Product and vision. You see possibilities before they are obvious. You understand that AI is not a feature but a layer that changes everything about how software can serve people. You bring ideas - about what the platform could do, how it could learn, where the technology is heading - and you make them real. You think about the user, the buyer, and the mission, not just the code.

Build and evolve. The platform runs on Azure with LLM orchestration at its core, alongside billing, communications, a browser extension, and integrations with enterprise tooling. You build with AI as your daily co-pilot. You ship fast, iterate constantly, and treat the product as a living system that matures every week. You are comfortable working across backend, infrastructure, and AI/ML, bringing in specialist contractors when front-end or design work requires it.

Regulated environments. Our clients include FCA-regulated firms, pharmaceutical companies, and public-sector education institutions. You understand what it means to build for environments where data residency, privacy, compliance, and governance are not optional. You have built or operated in regulated spaces before, or you understand why it matters and are ready to learn fast.

Ship and own. You are the kind of engineer who takes pride in the whole cycle: architecture to deployment to monitoring to iteration. You own uptime, documentation, security, and quality. When something breaks before a client demo, you fix it. When a new enterprise client needs a white-label single-tenant deployment, you scope and deliver it.

You

• An AI enthusiast who codes with AI, thinks about AI, and wants to spend your career building technology that genuinely changes how people work and live.
• Technically strong across backend, cloud infrastructure (ideally Azure), and AI/ML tooling. You care more about what you can build than the specific languages on your CV.
• Product-minded in the way a founder is product-minded: you think about the user, the business model, the market, and the mission, not just the engineering.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and ownership. This is a company where one exceptional person, amplified by AI, does what used to take a team. That excites you.
• Experienced in or ready for regulated environments: financial services, healthcare, education, pharma. You understand why governance and data handling matter.
• An ideas person who reads about where technology is heading, sees the possibilities of the era we are in, and wants to be part of shaping it - not just implementing someone else's vision.
• UK-based, with the right to work in the UK.

What we offer

• £65,000 to £85,000 depending on experience, with participation in a share option scheme available in time.
• Remote-first working with flexible hours. We gather in person for the moments that matter, including our London launch this autumn.
• A direct line to the founders and genuine influence over what the product becomes. This is not a role where you are handed tickets. This is a role where you shape the roadmap.
• A platform with paying clients, a proven methodology, and a market that has just realised it has this problem. You would be joining at the moment it goes to scale.
• The chance to build something that actually matters: technology designed to release more human potential into the world, not less.

How to apply

Send a short note to mackenzie@atheni.ai with the subject line "Lead Platform Engineer". Tell us the most impressive thing you have built, how AI featured in building it, and what excites you about what Atheni is doing. Links welcome. No agencies, please.