Senior Software Engineer

Location: London, UK (hybrid)

Role Type: Full-time

Experience: 5+ years

About Materiom

Materiom is a social enterprise dedicated to accelerating the development and widespread adoption of compostable bio-based materials to replace petrochemical plastics. Our mission is powered by the Materiom Commons, a data-centric platform with AI features and a large open database of material formulations, supporting a global user base of over 20,000 scientists and entrepreneurs. We seek to level the playing field for innovators worldwide, enabling them to quickly find and develop materials that are healthy for people and the planet. To assist creators and industrial SMEs in the critical discovery phase of R&D, we are evolving the platform through investments in data mining and predictive models, powered by new high-throughput empirical datasets from our data partners. We are actively piloting next-generation agentic features with signed partners to inform the next iteration of the platform. Our interdisciplinary team, blending expertise in circular economy, materials science, AI, and software development, is a collective of creative optimists driven by a belief in community and high-impact action.

Role summary

We seek a full-time Senior Software Engineer (full-stack) to help drive the rapid prototyping, development, and productization of data- and AI-heavy web applications. You will be instrumental in building solutions that alleviate R&D bottlenecks for innovators in bio-based materials. In addition to building robust full-stack systems you’ll also make key architectural contributions, translate complex user challenges into actionable technical roadmaps, and help further entrench engineering best practices in a mission-driven startup environment.

This role requires deep technical expertise across the stack (with an emphasis on front-end), a product-oriented mindset, and the ability to navigate ambiguity to deliver high-impact results. You will design and build scalable, user-centric applications, including transforming prototypes into practical solutions that advance Materiom’s mission. You will work closely with Materiom's senior leadership team (Co-CEOs, CTO) as the second member of the technical team, together helping to shape our product and platform.

Responsibilities

• Drive the end-to-end development of production-ready, data-heavy web applications, with a strong focus on rapid prototyping and iterative product cycles to test hypotheses.
• Design and implement robust, scalable, and maintainable full-stack systems, making critical architectural decisions, while following and nurturing best practices for code quality, testing, and continuous deployment (CI/CD).
• Lead front-end development, creating intuitive, responsive, and high-performance user interfaces for researchers and innovators.
• Develop and maintain backend services and APIs, ensuring seamless integration with front-end components and AI models.
• Collaborate closely with our AI Engineer to integrate and productionize AI-centric prototypes, building the necessary APIs, data plumbing, and infrastructure. Contribute to the development of tools usable by AI agents
• Design, implement, and manage database schemas, and take ownership of data migrations and integrity.
• Service internal needs for tooling that supports Materiom’s AI R&D tasks, such as data annotation, dataset management, evaluation scaffolding, and orchestration.
• Help manage and optimize cloud infrastructure on GCP, ensuring services are scalable, secure, and cost-effective.
• Champion and refine best practices in collaborative software development, including version control, code review, and automated testing. You should have a grounded, nuanced take on the best use of AI coding assistants.
• Demonstrate a high degree of autonomy and ownership, managing project priorities and delivering high-quality, impactful solutions with minimal supervision.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (e.g., Computer Science, Engineering) or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of professional experience in a software engineering environment, with a proven track record of designing, building, and deploying full-stack web applications in production.
• Deep expertise in front-end development, particularly with React and TypeScript, and a strong sense for user experience (UX).
• Strong proficiency in backend development, preferably with Python, and experience building and maintaining RESTful APIs.
• Demonstrated experience designing and managing databases (e.g., MongoDB, BigQuery, PostgreSQL).
• Expertise with a major cloud computing platform (GCP strongly preferred), including experience with core services (e.g., compute, storage, databases, networking).
• Deep understanding and practical experience with software engineering best practices, including version control, automated testing, CI/CD, and scalable system design.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate significant ambiguity, take high-level product ideas from concept to deployment, and drive complex projects to successful outcomes with high autonomy.
• Exceptional problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills, with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex technical challenges across the full stack.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with a proven ability to work effectively in a small, multidisciplinary team.
• Experience in a small, fast-paced, impact-driven startup environment, particularly in a pre-product-market-fit or early-growth stage.

Bonus Qualifications

• Proven experience transforming an initial MVP or prototype into a robust, scalable platform.
• Experience integrating with and building infrastructure around AI/ML models and APIs, including MCP.
• Experience with data mining or working with complex, unstructured scientific or measurement data.
• Background or strong interest in chemistry, polymer science, or materials science.
• Experience with data engineering pipelines (e.g., ETL, data warehousing) on GCP.
• Master’s degree in a related technical field.