Founding Engineer - Back End, Full-Stack

We’re looking for a self-driven founding engineer to build and own the ML infrastructure and data engineering of a venture-backed technology company securing the critical resources of the future by transforming inflexible, foundational industries with technology.

Why this matters

To meet global demand, the world needs to mine as much copper in the next 25 years as in all of human history. Today’s methods cannot scale to this challenge. We are developing frontier technology to fix this, starting with the core of every mining company - the understanding of the orebody.

We're a Cambridge University spin-out using explainable AI and value-of-information analysis to transform how mines are developed and operated. Our uncertainty-aware models map subsurface resources from multimodal data, so mining companies can make faster, better-evidenced drilling decisions. The outcome halves drilling costs, accelerates time to production, and reduces project risk so more minerals make it to market.

We recently closed an oversubscribed $4m round, have POCs running with some of the largest mining companies in the world and now have more pilot demand than we can serve. We're expanding the team to turn breakthrough technology into a product and scale it.

The Role

You’ll build and own the core systems architecture that powers our enterprise platform, turning complex geophysical models into a secure, lightning-fast SaaS product. In practice, you are the backbone that connects our ML platform to our user interface, ensuring our system is rock-solid when enterprise mining leaders trust us with their data.

Three things, done well, every week:

• Ship enterprise-ready platform infrastructure. Build robust, secure multi-tenant architectures, fine-grained access control (RBAC/SSO), and the data isolation layers required by enterprise security teams.

• Orchestrate complex backend state. Design transactional database schemas (PostgreSQL/PostGIS) and reliable async job queues that track, manage, and stream progress for heavy, long-running geophysical processing jobs in real time.

• Align with ML and Product Engineers. You build the middleware, APIs, and caching strategies that allow seamless communication between high-throughput MLOps pipelines and ultra-responsive frontend visualisations.

And one bigger thing, over months and years:

• Shape core system architecture. You’ll own how our database layers, backend services, and enterprise integration patterns evolve as we scale to servicing multiple users with heavy compliance standards in legacy industries. Spot a better way to structure our platform and you’re encouraged to pursue it.

How you will work

We're a small team with a lot of momentum and there is no playbook yet. You'll often have to decide what the right thing to do is, and not just execute on tasks. Some weeks are ambiguous and occasionally on fire. If that energises you, you'll thrive here; if you need a defined backlog handed to you, you won't.

• King’s Cross office - 4 days/week in person

• Meaningful equity

Who You Are

• Mission-driven. There are easier, more-highly paid jobs elsewhere; consider if building a massive company that is transforming a foundational industry is your main driver for applying.

• Self-directing. You identify what needs doing without being told, and prioritise ruthlessly.

• Backend & Systems Specialist. Deep Python or Go/Node skills with a track record of building production-grade distributed systems, APIs, and async processing engines.

• Database & Data Modeller. You have strong opinions on schema design, transactional state, PostGIS/relational databases, and caching strategies (Redis) for heavy workloads.

• Unreasonably resilient. You're proud of having done something genuinely hard; the challenge was a large part of the motivator.

Bonus if you

• Have built enterprise B2B SaaS through rigorous IT, SOC2, and procurement security reviews

• Have deep experience with async task queues (Celery, Temporal, Redis) handling heavy scientific or spatial data loads

• Know your way around spatial databases (PostGIS) or geospatial data standards

• Have experience building integrations into third-party cloud environments (AWS S3, Azure Blob, client GIS platforms)

The Team

Small & technical - 4 engineers with years of experience building hard things that touch the real world.

Advisor support - you will be supported by industry veterans across product, machine learning and mining.

• Gabriel Yoong - CEO and Co-Founder

  Gabriel is a second-time immigrant founder with a background in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London (2x Dean's list).

  While still at university, Gabriel was the second engineering hire at the UK's first grid-scale battery start-up (sold to EDF-RE) and managed parts of the construction of the world's first grid-connected hybrid battery system (Energy Superhub Oxford). He was most recently the youngest investor at the largest solar developer in the UK, where he helped build and sell the largest BESS platform in the Netherlands. It was in that investment role that he saw raw material supply shocks stalling energy transition projects first-hand, and he's now dedicated to solving that problem to unblock decarbonisation.

  He also loves cooking, represented the UK in karate, runs a weekly badminton club, and used to teach a boxercise class in a night club under some train tracks.

• Luke Cullen - CTO and Co-Founder

  Luke is a geophysicist by background who began his mining career as a haul truck driver in an underground gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. While driving 12-hour shifts, he taught himself machine learning by listening to podcasts and coding in his other 12 hours.

  After a stint at a geophysics consultancy, he grew frustrated with the gut-feel-led nature of the mining industry, and made his way onto a PhD at the University of Cambridge applying machine learning to messy and incomplete data systems. During his research he worked with NASA on earthquake-prediction algorithms, and built models for search-and-rescue teams estimating structural damage to buildings after the Beirut port explosion.

  Luke is also a new father, runs marathons and Ironmans for "fun", and loves surfing.

Apply or Refer

If you're interested, or know someone who is, we'd like to hear from you.

Email your CV to gabriel.yoong@materialdifference.earth and we will get back to you.