Head of Engineering

Human time and effort is the rarest thing in the universe. The fact that so many people hate what they do for work is a disaster on so many levels. How many people live quiet lives of misery? How many generational talents do we miss due to circumstance? Dex's mission is to close the gap between Talent & Opportunity, we believe that work, and being productive, is part of the human condition, that regardless of AI, human passion, ingenuity and a desire to do things means that work will always exist. We are building Dex to create a future where technology helps every individual to understand their strengths, interests and unique abilities, and to connect with opportunities where they can thrive, because more people doing things they love leads to a better, happier and more productive world. We're starting by connecting the world's most ambitious software engineers with the companies that deserve them.

Dex is backed by a16z Speedrun, Concept Ventures and angels from OpenAI, Wise, ElevenLabs, Meta's board, and many more. We're an ambitious, direct and kind group of people, we value authenticity, ambition and people who make things happen. We're a team of 12 (and growing) based in London (Borough). We work together 3 ish times a week because we value in person time, but we're person centric and flexible. We hire adults who can manage their own schedules.

Dex is hiring for a hands on, passionate and enthusiastic engineering leader that enjoys shipping great products and building world class teams.

Today we're a small team of engineers (3) with plans to double in the coming months. We're looking for someone that can help build and lead whilst shipping alongside the team.

You'll work closely with the founder and be part of the leadership team of the business, owning the technology roadmap and resourcing.

• Own technical direction. Make architectural decisions, review and improve system design, and keep the codebase clean and maintainable as we scale.
• Raise the bar on engineering. Establish code review standards, incident hygiene and quality expectations that make everyone around you better.
• Introduce lightweight process. Planning rituals, delivery cadences and review practices that add signal without adding bureaucracy.
• Ship alongside the team. Stay hands on across backend systems, agent infrastructure and product features. Lead by building, not by managing.
• Mentor and grow engineers. Give direct, useful feedback. Help people solve harder problems and take on more scope.
• Own the technology strategy, anticipate the business's needs and adapt to support the organisation's commercial needs.

You have a track record of raising engineering quality wherever you go. Other engineers got better because you were there.

You know how to introduce process that actually sticks in a small team, without turning it into overhead.

You can design systems, make trade offs beyond individual features, and explain those decisions clearly to technical and non technical stakeholders.

You don't wait for perfect conditions. You prioritise ruthlessly, take ownership in ambiguity and lead by example under pressure.

Technically deep in Python backend work (FastAPI or equivalent, async patterns, production reliability), system design and data modelling at product scale. Strong experience with or genuine interest in LLM integration and agent systems.

Experience hiring exceptional engineers and growing an early engineering team.

Bonus if you've worked with voice agents, real time systems, evaluation infrastructure, or recruiting/HR tech. TypeScript and full stack exposure is a plus.

Note: We know that talent can't be summed up in a few bullet points. Even if you don't match everything we mentioned, we don't want that to be a barrier. If you're excited about what we're building, we want to hear from you.

Dex represents an opportunity to join a well funded, early stage business that is solving a real and relatable problem in a gigantic market.

This is an opportunity to build a brand from the early stages in a team that cares deeply about brand and design. We work in a market that has an absolute dearth of intentional brands and designs; we want to stand out from that.

There will be a generational company built in this space, we believe it's going to be Dex.

• Above market salary - we're building a world class team and believe pay should match that ambition.
• Significant equity - we want this to be the last job you 'have' to take.
• Full private healthcare & dental - because life happens and we want to support you.
• Fertility benefits & enhanced parental support.
• Gym membership & wellness benefits.
• Claude tokens - lots and lots of Claude tokens.
• Regular socials, off sites and an annual trip.
• MacBook Pro + team kit.
• "Whatever you need" approach to tools and support.