Lead Software Engineer

We live in a world that runs on physical industries like energy, logistics, manufacturing. These sectors are essential to our economy and daily lives, yet they are held back by inefficiencies, fragile legacy systems, and decades-old ways of working. This is not just a business problem; it is a societal one. When grids fail, supply chains stall, or factories falter, entire economies are disrupted.

These companies face unique, complex challenges that typical software was never designed to solve. Cogna was founded to change this. Our mission is to give critical industries their own AI-powered Software Factory: a way to build and deploy bespoke digital tools that solve pressing operational challenges.

Since our launch in May 2023, we’ve seen incredible customer traction and revenue growth. We’re backed by leading VCs, including Notion Capital and Hoxton Ventures, and we’re building a world-class team to take on one of the most important challenges of our time.

Tackling challenges at this scale takes people who are curious, adaptable, and motivated by impact. If our mission resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn’t match every requirement. We are committed to building a diverse team that reflects the industries and societies we serve.

Overview

We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to lead a team of 3-6 talented engineers while spending more than half your time doing deeply technical work. You will be responsible for building high-performing teams, shaping technical direction, and ensuring delivery of impactful projects. You will be part of an all-star early team, building the future of software.

What you’ll do

• Lead and develop a team of 3-6 engineers, providing coaching, feedback, and career growth opportunities.
• Own delivery of technically complex, high-impact projects, ensuring quality and scalability while balancing trade-offs under pressure.
• Contribute to architecture and systems design across multiple product areas, bringing clarity in ambiguous situations.
• Write and ship high-quality, efficient, and reliable code that is extendible, scalable, and observable. You know how to move fast without breaking things and you know how to keep the right balance between experimentation and shipping.
• Take ideas from experimentation to shipping. You intuitively know what a great product looks like.
• Build and help foster an engineering culture that encourages innovation and high-quality code standards, while shipping fast.
• Collaborate closely with other teams to build world-class software.
• Work closely with Product to help define the roadmap and set objectives.

What we’re looking for

• At least 3 years of relevant work experience leading and hiring engineering teams.
• The drive to work at an early-stage startup. You thrive in a fast-paced, quickly changing, and independent environment.
• You have a “buck stops here” attitude.  Raising issues and ensuring they have owners.  You regularly step up to own and drive meaningful change yourself.
• You have a high level of agency and are comfortable working with high levels of ambiguity.  You can work across multiple teams to bring clarity and alignment.
• You enjoy the unique challenge of juggling being deeply technical with supporting others.  You enjoy spending one day deep in a complex code change and the next day discussing career growth and planning delivery.
• You’re passionate about developing engineers from intern to staff level, adapting your style, delegation, and direction accordingly.
• You’re highly proficient in some of the following: modern typed Python, Go, modern frontend development, docker, PostgreSQL, code analysis, compilers, or domain specific languages.
• You have worked in complex large codebases. You understand the intricacies of them.
• You’re a creative experimentalist at heart and have industry experience in an environment where this was necessary.
• You either have professional experience using LLMs or have enthusiastically experimented in your own time. Industry experience with LLM toolchains and ecosystems (e.g. libraries like Langchain, observability tooling, RAG systems, etc.) is a plus.
• You can work closely with a Product Manager to understand customer requirements, build a vision for your team, and turn that into reliable systems quickly, and iterate from there, while balancing long-term engineering maintenance effort. You’re great at communicating technical systems succinctly to a product-focused audience.

Special note about career breaks: We accept candidates with career breaks and CV gaps. Life happens, we get it. Please apply anyway!

What we offer

• Competitive salary and share option plan
• 25 days annual leave, plus public holidays
• Excellent pension scheme, fixed at 7.5%
• Private healthcare, including family cover and pre-existing conditions
• Flexible hybrid working with 2 days per fortnight in our Farringdon office, but different schedules can be negotiated.
• Regular social events and offsites
• Access to a gym and fitness classes in our office building