Job Specifications
Neya is hiring a founding engineer to help build the world’s first AI super-neighbour. We're on a mission to build stronger, more connected local communities, by pioneering the development of AI to increase social connection.
Building new infrastructure that creates strong local communities is the biggest opportunity to increase human happiness, health, social mobility and wellbeing. It also creates the first marketplace in local services, a $100bn opportunity.
You’ll join as the first hire, working directly with experienced, repeat founders (CTO ex-Spotify/Gousto/Trainline, CEO with 8-figure exit) to design the architecture, ship core features, and set the engineering culture from day one. This is a hands-on role for someone who loves LLMs, complex systems and real-world impact. You’ll own the backend, agent architecture and data foundations that need to scale to millions of communities.
If you want meaningful equity, real responsibility, and the chance to build a product that genuinely improves everyday life for millions of people, we’d love to talk.
Location: London (ideally 2 days per week in person)
Team: Founding Team
Compensation: Meaningful equity, plus competitive early team salary.
Start date: ASAP
Tech stack: LLMs (LangChain), Node (Express), Next.js (React + TypeScript), Supabase, vector embeddings, Native mobile (currently Capacitor), WhatsApp Cloud API
About Neya
Neya is building the world’s first hyper-local AI super-neighbour: an intelligent concierge that helps people discover the right local people, groups, and businesses exactly when they need them. This is both a $100bn financial opportunity and a chance to build a product that positively impacts millions of people’s lives.
We’ve just raised our first round of funding (c.$1m) and are already testing with early users. Launch is close, momentum is high, and we’re looking for someone who can help us move faster.
Our ambition is to become the global leader in using LLMs to strengthen real-world relationships and community infrastructure. This means solving complex technical challenges around agent reliability and recommendation systems, as well as real-world problems in human behaviour, trust, local networks, and everyday social interaction.
We are highly experienced founders (2x exits) with deep specialism in this field. If you want to build something that matters and shape the product, architecture, and culture from day one, then we want to hear from you.
Website: https://www.joinneya.com
Founders:
Josh Wreford (CTO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuawreford
World-class technical architect, with 17 years of experience building scalable systems that turn complex user behaviour into elegant, intuitive products, inc. at Spotify, Gousto and Trainline.
Rob Chapman (CEO): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-chapman-uk
Experienced CEO, having scaled and sold his first company to Accenture in 8-figure exit, whilst maintaining an industry-leading 4.7* Glassdoor rating.
Harry Hobson (Co-founder): https://www.linkedin.com/in/harryhobson
One of the UK’s leading experts on social connection and loneliness, with years of frontline experience designing interventions that change how communities work.
The Role
We are looking for a partner, not just an employee. You will be a hands-on engineer, helping define what we build, how we build it, and the engineering standards that shape Neya for years to come. This is a role where your decisions will meaningfully influence the future of the product and the company.
You’ll take on hard challenges such as keeping agents reliable, modelling neighbourhood-level behaviour, designing trust and reputation systems, and structuring messy conversation, while also contributing to key product features across the main app. These core technical foundations will be essential to ensuring Neya can scale to millions of communities.
You will work directly with the CTO (ex-Spotify, Gousto) and co-founders to build, ship, and scale the product.
There’s no bureaucracy here. Just a small team, moving fast, building for real users, and focused on making a meaningful impact.
Why apply
The chance to build one of the most ambitious and high social impact real-world applications of AI, with a technical, behavioural and network moat.
A rare opportunity to shape a venture scaling company at its foundation.
Deep ownership over the product, architecture, and direction.
Equity with massive long-term upside.
An experienced team that values purpose, craft, trust, and momentum.
We have very ambitious goals and expect to grow significantly over the coming years. Joining now means helping lay the foundations for that growth.
About the Company
We are on a **mission to build stronger, more connected local communities,** by pioneering the development of AI that increases social connection. Building new infrastructure that creates strong local communities is the biggest opportunity to increase human happiness, health, social mobility and wellbeing. Neya connects you to local people, groups and businesses, creating the AI-native marketplace in local services.
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