As Head of Engineering, you will build Valteros’s technical foundation from zero, transitioning the company from research to a hardened product for government and institutional customers. You will serve as a player-coach, architecting the system across four layers—from the simulation engine to foundation-model routing—while hiring the initial senior engineering team.
Head of Engineering at Valteros
Join Valteros as Head of Engineering and lead the development of a groundbreaking new class of AI: Large Behavioural Models (LBMs). Backed by a £2M pre-seed round, this "neolab" is building multi-agent systems to protect populations from information warfare and cognitive manipulation for government and defence clients. This is a high-impact, CTO-track role where you will architect the platform from zero, hire the initial team, and ship critical products to institutional customers. If you are a builder with deep ML expertise and a desire to solve one of the defining challenges of our era, this is your ground-floor opportunity.
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Location
London, United Kingdom
Compensation
£160k-£200k + Equity
Company
Valteros
Role overview
Defence Tech5–10+ employees
Valteros is a London-based defence startup protecting democracies from information warfare, one of the defining security threats of the decade.
NATO has recognised cognitive security as an emerging domain of conflict, and artificial intelligence and online polarisation are making it harder to counter every year. Our solution: we build multi-agents modelling platforms to simulate the impact of these threats.
We closed a £2M pre-seed round in June.
What you will do
- Architect and deliver a hardened MVP and paid pilots involving simulation engines, analytics surfaces, and foundation model routing.
- Establish foundational engineering standards, including CI/CD, testing protocols, and security-by-design for high-compliance government and intelligence environments.
- Lead technical strategy for investor due diligence while personally writing code and hiring the first 5-10 senior engineers.
Who this is a fit for
- Proven track record of shipping production-grade software as a senior engineer or technical founder, ideally in a fast-paced startup.
- Deep expertise in backend and ML systems, specifically LLM routing, inference, evaluation, and multi-agent simulation frameworks.
- Eligible for UK Security Clearance (SC) with the right to work in the UK and ability to commute to Oxford.
Why this role is remarkable
- True CTO track position with an explicit review for the title at the upcoming February 2027 deep-tech funding round.
- Unique opportunity to lead a “neolab” building a new class of AI—Large Behavioural Models (LBMs)—addressing critical national security threats.
- Join a well-funded pre-seed startup (£2M raised) with high-stakes government pilots scheduled to launch and scale within months.
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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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If your profile’s a match and Valteros wants to meet, Jill will make the intro. In the meantime, Jack will send you excellent alternatives.