Founding Engineer - AI-Powered Enterprise Talent Product

About the Role

SocialTalent is seeking a Founding Engineer to lead advancement of Cara, our AI-driven product designed for enterprise talent teams. This senior position offers more than just codebase ownership; it involves directly collaborating with the Chief Technology and Product Officer to define Cara's architecture, engineering strategy, and team development as the product scales.

Responsibilities

• Own and direct Cara's technical architecture throughout product evolution.
• Actively contribute to development by building and shipping features.
• Integrate AI-driven methods across development processes including automation, evaluation, and quality control.
• Develop tools and practices that empower a compact, senior engineering team to deliver outstanding results.
• Collaborate closely with product, customer, and engineering stakeholders in decision-making.
• Ensure enterprise-level compliance with reliability, security, GDPR, data residency, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and EU AI Act standards.
• Assist in shaping and leading the engineering team as Cara expands.

Candidate Profile

• Proven software engineering and architectural expertise with significant ownership of live systems.
• Experience delivering products, preferably within startups, scale-ups, or early-stage projects.
• Practical application of AI to fundamentally enhance software development beyond assisting code generation.
• Track record of increasing engineering efficiency via tooling, automation, or improved workflows.
• Strong product insight and a customer-oriented mindset alongside technical skills.
• Background in building robust enterprise B2B SaaS software.
• Technical leadership ability to set high standards and guide colleagues while remaining hands-on.

Familiarity with SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, enterprise security, or regulated AI frameworks is advantageous. Machine learning research experience is not required, as Cara leverages existing models without training them.

Why Join Us?

This role provides a rare opportunity to influence critical engineering decisions at a stage where the product and customers are established but much innovation lies ahead. SocialTalent is a well-established Irish company with 15 years of operation and secured multi-year RD&I funding for Cara. We maintain a small, highly skilled AI-enhanced engineering team, focusing on quality over quantity.

Location and Compensation

• This is a remote position within Ireland, with occasional in-person company meetings; candidates must be located in Ireland and have the legal right to work there.
• Competitive senior-level salary of €130,000 base with a 20% bonus opportunity.
• Flexible benefits totaling 10% of salary, including health and pension options with matched employer pension contribution up to 10%.
• 33 days of holiday annually.
• 35-hour workweek promoting work-life balance.
• Remote work flexibility with regular attendance for team activities.
• Illness benefit paid at 75%.
• Monthly allowance for mobile phone expenses.

About SocialTalent

For 15 years, SocialTalent has empowered organizations globally to enhance hiring capabilities through expert-led learning. The AI hire, Cara by SocialTalent, complements our Learning platform by automating transactional recruiting tasks, allowing teams to concentrate on high-value activities. Our culture emphasizes adaptability, collaboration, dignity, integrity, experimentation, and acceleration, fostering an environment where contributions are visible and valued.

Equal Opportunity Statement

SocialTalent is dedicated to inclusive employment practices, ensuring non-discrimination based on gender, civil or family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, or membership of the Traveller community.