Senior Software Engineer with CTO pathway
1 day ago
Sheffield
We’re looking for a senior, full-stack engineer who wants to do more than join a team - someone interested in taking long-term ownership of a product and helping shape what it becomes. This is not a standard salaried role today. It’s an opportunity to step into a foundational engineering position, working directly with the founder, with a clear path to technical leadership / CTO responsibility as the business scales. To save us both time, this role won’t be the right fit if... • You’re looking for a full-time salaried or paid contract position from day one, • You’re still building core engineering experience, • You prefer clearly defined requirements and large-team support structures, • You’re not comfortable operating with a high degree of ownership and autonomy, • You’re unable to meet UK security clearance requirements or be UK-based long-term, • You represent a recruiter / outsourcer looking to place one of your team with us What we’re building At Proven EA, we’ve built Sapience, a structured knowledge platform designed for organisations where getting the right guidance, at the right time, to the right people, actually matters. It’s already live and in use in regulated environments (including government and defence contexts), with expansion planned across both public-sector domains and private-sector organisations where structured operational guidance is critical. This growth is supported by the development of a partner-led delivery model. Core capabilities include: • structured authoring and workflow, • unique persona-aware guidance delivery, • full audit trail and governance, • deterministic search over structured content We are also developing AI-assisted capabilities, where: • AI helps authors break down and accurately summarise guidance, • AI helps users navigate and refine context when they don’t know what to ask, • outputs are constrained by structured, authoritative content (not free-form generation), • AI does not make decisions - governance, auditability, and control remain central Technically, the platform is a modular, event-driven system running on: • Node.js / TypeScript, • MongoDB + Elasticsearch (derived index model), • Redis (coordination), • Kubernetes (currently Azure Kubernetes Service, but designed to be portable across Kubernetes environments, including sovereign or air-gapped deployments) The role (as it actually is today) • Working alongside the existing team to understand the platform and its architectural intent, • Leading the evolution of the platform to support multi-client, operationally scalable deployments, • Contributing to and shaping technical direction and architectural decisions, • Ensuring the system scales cleanly as adoption grows This is hands-on engineering, not management. The reality (important) We are currently: • pre-scale commercially, • operating with a deliberately lean funding model while validating growth pathways, • building towards revenue and/or investment So: 👉 This role starts as part-time / fractional but may need to switch to full time at short notice 👉 Compensation is primarily equity / growth share, with modest cash where possible 👉 The expectation is that this converts to a paid leadership role as the business scales If you’re looking for a standard salary today, this won’t be the right fit. Why this might still be interesting • The platform is already built and deployed, not just an idea, • The domain is non-trivial and meaningful (regulated / complex operational environments), • The architecture is structured and considered, not throwaway, • There is a clear functional and operational roadmap in place, • There is a genuine opportunity to own the technical direction of something real What we’re looking for This is a senior, hands-on, full-stack role with real ownership, so a strong technical foundation is essential. That said, we don’t expect anyone to tick every box. Many skills are readily transferable, and we value people who think clearly, ask questions and challenge assumptions: if the role interests you and you believe you have something to add, it’s worth a conversation. To help you decide if this is for you, you will likely recognise yourself in most of the following: • Strong backend experience (Node.js / TypeScript or similar), • Solid UX / UI design and implementation, • Comfortable reasoning about architecture, not just code, • Experience with cloud-native systems (Kubernetes desirable), • Pragmatic - knows when not to change things, • Self aware - knows what they don’t know, and is happy to ask, research, and learn, • Interested in ownership, not just delivery, • Comfortable mentoring and supporting more junior team members, • Comfortable with a "disagree, then commit" approach to decision-making Bonus: • Experience in regulated environments (defence, government, etc.), • Experience working with search platforms (e.g. Elasticsearch), • Interest in AI-assisted systems where governance and control matter, • Familiarity with GDS patterns and standards Practicalities • UK-based, with long-term right to work in the UK (we cannot sponsor visa applications), • Must be eligible for SC clearance (or already hold it), • Primarily remote, with periodic travel (e.g. monthly) to Staffordshire, • Initially part-time / flexible engagement Fit This will suit someone who: • wants to build something properly, not quickly, • is comfortable with uncertainty but not chaos, • values long-term ownership over short-term salary It won’t suit someone looking for: • a large team, • somewhere to build core skills (though we expect you to significantly expand them in role), • a fully funded start-up, • or a clean greenfield rewrite Interested? Please apply via LinkedIn initially - we will respond personally to all applicants and are happy to have a straightforward conversation about where we are and where this could go.