Founding Engineer

5 days ago

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Slate Full time $260,000 - $312,000 per year

TLDR;

  • We're building the first AI-native finance platform for lending
  • Backed by top-tier VCs and Banks (over $42M in funding across Seed & Series A)
  • Strong demand - actively engaged with top tier lenders and banks in Australia who are waiting for the platform
  • Looking for elite full-stack builders who thrive in fast-pace startups
  • Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a tight-knit all-star early team

What you'll build

  • A modern SaaS platform with smart AI functionality, slick UX, and real automation that delivers on the AI promise
  • Credit Decision Engines: systems that analyse loan applications with speed and accuracy, turning complex credit policies into executable code
  • Financial Infrastructure: multi-tenant systems that handle sensitive financial data with reliability and security
  • Document Processing Pipelines: intelligent extraction and structuring of data from unstructured documents using ML models
  • Compliance Architecture: audit trails and reporting systems that meet strict ASIC requirements

How we work

  • Ship end-to-end: You own the problem, not just a layer in the stack
  • High autonomy: You'll have the context and trust to make big decisions
  • Small team, high impact: No bureaucracy, just high-speed and high-quality shipping
  • Speed first: We try things out instead of endless planning

Why join Slate

  • Impact: Your code will directly reduce loan processing times from weeks to minutes, helping Australians access credit when they need it.
  • Growth: As one of our first engineers, you'll have significant influence on technical direction and company culture. We offer a $2,000 annual learning budget and encourage and support presenting at fintech meetups/conferences.
  • Culture: Small team, high autonomy, no bureaucracy. We ship end-to-end, value clarity and excellence, and build sustainable systems and sustainable careers.

Who we want

We're assembling a top-tier founding team and we're looking for the brightest engineers with startup experience and a founder mindset.

If you're looking for a comfortable job with well-defined tasks, this isn't it. If you want to build and ship at breakneck speed, own massive impact, and shape a world-class product from day one, let's talk.

Mindset & Approach

  • Startup experience and founder mentality - you've built things from scratch, owned projects end-to-end, and think beyond code to the bigger picture
  • Speed and autonomy - thrive in a high-velocity environment where ideas become shipped features quickly
  • Curiosity and boldness - comfortable stepping outside your comfort zone, learning new domains, and talking to customers directly

Essential Experience

  • 5+ years building production systems (fintech, payments, or other regulated industries ideal)
  • Strong JVM expertise (Kotlin or Java) with deep Spring ecosystem knowledge, or deep experience working in other complex backend languages and can pick up language quickly
  • Proven experience designing and operating distributed microservices architectures
  • Database design with ACID/audit requirements and strong PostgreSQL knowledge
  • Cloud-native development with containerisation and IaC (we use Google Cloud)
  • Track record of building scalable, maintainable codebases for growing teams

Valuable Experience

  • Event-driven architecture (Kafka or similar)
  • AI/ML integration (document processing, NLP, LLM-based automation)
  • RAG pipelines, embeddings, vector DBs, full-text search
  • Realtime collaboration features (Websockets, YJS, tRPC)
  • Custom UI component libraries / design systems
  • DevOps experience with GCP, GitHub Actions, Cloud Run
  • Excellent taste in product and UI design – You have a strong sense of what makes a great user experience and care about the details.

Compensation & benefits

  • Total Compensation (Base + Bonus + Equity) : ~$260k p.a. based on experience
  • $200/month allowance for technology and wellness
  • $2,000 for learning and growth budget
  • Flexible hybrid/remote working arrangements
  • Top-tier equipment to support your productivity
  • Location: Potts Point, Sydney (with flexible remote options)

How to apply

If you're excited about transforming the lending industry and building systems that matter, we'd love to hear from you.

  • Founding Engineer

    4 days ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Elevia Group Full time $200,000 - $250,000 per year

    Who We AreElevia Group is a financial intelligence firm that builds sophisticated data solutions for asset managers and family offices. Our work is grounded in providing bespoke services that manage critical custodial and fund administration workflows. This includes aggregating and normalising data from multiple custodians, performing intricate portfolio...

  • Founding Software Engineer

    2 weeks ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Ventures Full time $200,000 - $250,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee. Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup that's redefining how business leaders activate, nurture, and grow their most valuable asset: relationships. This company has built an MVP and is ready...

  • Founding Software Engineer

    2 weeks ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Full time $200,000 - $250,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee.Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup that's redefining how business leaders activate, nurture, and grow their most valuable asset: relationships. This company has built an MVP and is ready to...

  • Founding Software Engineer

    1 week ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Ventures Full time $150,000 - $250,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee. Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup that's redefining how business leaders activate, nurture, and grow their most valuable asset: relationships. This company has built an MVP and is ready...

  • Founding Software Engineer

    4 days ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia SkillsRobin Full time $120,000 - $180,000 per year

    Join a funded startup, building an AI co-pilot for child development.Type of role:Full-timeLocation:Sydney, MelbournePay:Salary + EquityWorking style:Hybrid, In the officeTeam size: 4Company's funding stage:Pre-seedAbout the companyWe're a shared AI co-pilot for child development - built to support the parents, carers, and clinicians navigating complex...

  • Founding Product Engineer

    3 days ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Vern Full time $80,000 - $120,000 per year

    About VernVern removes migration friction so your customers go live faster, with fewer errors and no endless manual work.We're building AI agents to automate data conversion, helping software companies onboard customers faster. No more CSV hell. No more months-long integrations. Just clean, automated migrations that get customers into products where they...

  • Founding Growth Lead

    2 weeks ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Ventures Full time $180,000 - $250,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee. Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup on a mission to elevate how business leaders activate and nurture their most valuable asset: relationships. With an MVP already live and three...

  • Founding Growth Lead

    2 weeks ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Ventures Full time $120,000 - $240,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee.Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup on a mission to elevate how business leaders activate and nurture their most valuable asset: relationships. With an MVP already live and three...

  • Founding Growth Lead

    1 week ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Airtree Ventures Full time $120,000 - $180,000 per year

    This role is for one of our portfolio companies, not internally at Airtree. Your application will be reviewed by the founder, not an Airtree employee. Airtree has recently invested in a stealth-mode startup on a mission to elevate how business leaders activate and nurture their most valuable asset: relationships. With an MVP already live and three...

  • Founding Product Designer

    1 week ago

    Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Kantoko Full time $120,000 - $180,000 per year

    ADHD care is broken, but we're fixing it. Kantoko makes high quality ADHD care accessible, from diagnosis to long term support and care. Once in a lifetime opportunity to join a fast-growing health startup as Founding Product Designer. This is a rare opportunity to be the first designer in a fast-moving startup led by a successful founder (prev startup...