Senior Engineer - High Performance Data Systems

Encord is the universal data layer for AI. Our platform indexes, curates, annotates and evaluates multimodal data across the full AI lifecycle, from development to production, for 300+ AI teams including Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath and Zipline.

Encord was founded by former computer scientists, physicists and quants who saw first-hand how poor tooling for training data slows AI progress. We're a Series C company backed by CRV and Y Combinator, with 150+ people across London, San Francisco and New York.

AI teams are generating video, images, 3D sensor data and documents faster than anyone's systems can keep up. Help us build the high-performance data systems behind the AI data platform for robotics and beyond.

Own significant projects in our data systems end to end: design, architecture, deployment, monitoring and measuring the impact you made

Build distributed systems that stay fast and correct under load, and reason carefully about every way they can fail

Shape performant protocols and APIs, that customers build directly on top of

Find simple solutions to complex domains at scale, and know when boring technology wins

Raise the bar for everyone around you through code reviews, pairing and sharing what you know

Scale that's genuinely hard. Multimodal AI data is big, messy and growing fast. You'll solve problems most backend engineers only read about.

Real ownership. You'll own whole systems, not tickets, and the architectural calls are yours to make.

Work that ships. Your systems power 300+ AI teams, including Woven by Toyota, AXA, UiPath and Zipline.

Long-term thinking. A team that plans 24 months out and gives you room to build things properly.

The right moment. A Series C company growing fast, early enough that your decisions shape the platform for years.

You've seen and built a lot. You have personally developed and maintained multiple systems from scratch, and you know what trade-offs are involved in building reliable, performant software at speed

You combine rigorous engineering with ruthless prioritisation to ship efficient and correct systems quickly.

You're happy to tackle problems without a predefined, clear definition or obvious solution, and are excited to have autonomy to make decisions as you go

You understand that being a member of a high-performing team requires two things. You contribute your best work and help others contribute their best. You'll always lend a helping hand when needed and level up those around you

Competitive salary, commission, and meaningful equity in a high-growth startup

Strong in-person culture — most of the team works from our London office 4+ days/week

25 days annual leave + UK public holidays

Annual learning & development budget

Travel for customer visits, events, and conferences across the UK and Europe

Company lunches twice a week

Monthly socials & bi-annual team offsites