As the first hire at Kantrip, you will architect an AI-native game engine from scratch. You will build the core systems that enable agents to generate and ship native mobile games, working directly with the founders in London. This is a high-intensity, founding role for a builder who wants to redefine game development.
Founding Engineer at Kantrip
Kantrip is hiring its first Founding Engineer in London to build the world’s first AI-native game engine in TypeScript. Backed by top-tier gaming and consumer VCs, this pre-seed startup is democratizing the $150bn mobile game market by replacing complex studio tools with an agentic pipeline. You will work side-by-side with the founders to architect a high-performance engine from scratch. If you are a high-slope builder who lives in Cursor and Claude and wants to own the technical foundation of a future industry giant, this is the role for you. Expect founder-level intensity and meaningful equity.
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Location
London, United Kingdom
Compensation
Not Disclosed
Company
Kantrip
Role overview
We’re an early-stage, AI-native startup on a mission to put real game-building in everyone’s hands. Today, shipping a polished, native, monetisable mobile game means wrestling with engines built for big studios. We’re changing that, building the end-to-end agentic pipeline that lets anyone create real, native, high-performance mobile games that actually scale and make money. Underneath it, we’re building our own AI-native game engine in TypeScript (AI’s favourite language) so agents can build, iterate and ship games end to end. It’s a $150bn+ market that’s been gated by complexity, and we’re opening it up. We’re pre-seed and VC-backed by some excellent gaming and consumer investors. We’re a small, founder-led team building fast, and we’re looking for hungry, exceptional people across engineering, AI and design who want to build something that could become genuinely huge, not optimise for title or comfort. London-based, in-person, moving quickly.
What you will do
- Design and build the core engine and agentic pipeline, translating the vision of AI-generated games into a high-performance, native reality.
- Collaborate daily with the founder to navigate architectural tradeoffs, aiming for a rapid vertical slice while maintaining a high quality bar.
- Establish an engineering culture that prioritizes speed, performance, and an AI-native workflow, ensuring games scale efficiently on real mobile devices.
Who this is a fit for
- A high-calibre builder with 1-4 years of experience, ideally from a top-tier computer science program or a highly respected engineering team.
- Deeply proficient in TypeScript and React; experience with React Native is a significant advantage for building native mobile experiences.
- An AI-native developer who integrates tools like Cursor and Claude into their daily workflow to ship faster and solve complex systems problems.
Why this role is remarkable
- You will be the very first engineer on the ground, shaping the technical architecture, engineering culture, and product direction from day zero.
- Work at the bleeding edge of AI and systems engineering by building a custom, TypeScript-based game engine designed specifically for agentic workflows.
- Join a pre-seed startup backed by elite gaming and consumer VCs, offering the unique opportunity to disrupt a $150bn+ market currently gated by legacy tooling.
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I get to know what you’re great at, then find roles you’d never find yourself.Ok, I'll go first. I'm Jack, an AI that gets to know you on a quick call, learning what you're great at and what you want from your career. Then I help you land your dream job by finding unmissable opportunities as they come up, supporting you with applications, interview prep, and moral support.
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