Founding Product Engineer — Venture Platform & Infrastructure

About The Studio

Utopia Studio is an AI-native venture builder for the Global South, backed by Qatar Development Bank. We work with domain experts across the GCC, Southeast Asia, and Africa to accelerate venture creation through AI-driven execution and shared infrastructure.

At the core is Utopia OS — a modular platform that automates what's repeatable, embeds AI agents across workflows, and lets learning compound across ventures.

We're looking for a founding product engineer to build the platform and infrastructure side of Utopia OS. You’ll design, develop, and scale the shared systems, data pipelines, and full-stack applications that power dozens of AI-native ventures launching from Doha for the Global South.

You’ll combine deep backend expertise with the ability to deliver seamless, data-driven web experiences that make AI-native venture building faster and smarter.

You will work as part of a product trio with the Design Lead and the Rapid Prototyping Engineer, making joint decisions on discovery, scope, and technical approach.

Reports to:

Studio Director
Growth path:
Head of AI Platform / CTO track

• Architect, build, and maintain Utopia OS infrastructure: auth, data systems, deployment, monitoring, analytics
• Develop full-stack web apps and plugins for studio-wide decisioning and analytics
• Build and maintain data pipelines for ingestion, transformation, and deployment across all ventures
• Develop and maintain robust backend systems and APIs, integrating modern databases (Postgres, Supabase, Planet Scale) and data architectures (Iceberg, Delta Lake).
• Implement data pipelines and transformation workflows (Dagster, Airflow) to enable real-time analytics across ventures.
• Create clear, reusable documentation and internal tooling to standardize engineering practices across the platform.
• Take early-stage products and harden them for scale, reliability, and compliance.
• Collaborate with design and product teams to translate data and infrastructure capabilities into intuitive user experiences and venture-facing tools.
• Implement CI/CD, observability, and security frameworks across the portfolio
• Design deployment templates for multi-tenant environments and enterprise integrations

• Work closely with venture teams to integrate AI workflows and shared infrastructure
• Improve developer experience through modern, intuitive tool design
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to engineers and fellows — fostering a culture of learning, experimentation, and shared standards across the Studio.
• Document architecture, standards, and playbooks so they can be reused across the studio
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both engineering and non-technical stakeholders — turning systems thinking into shared understanding.
• Stay current with advances in generative AI, data infrastructure, and modern web engineering
• Work in a tight loop with the Design Lead on design system needs and with the Rapid Prototyping Engineer to product ionize validated prototypes into secure, scalable services.
• Co‑own technical discovery with the product trio: define evaluation plans, success metrics, and risks before committing to builds.
• You’ll also help the team build shared capabilities typically owned by dedicated functions — like LLMOps, Data Engineering, and Security — but in a lean, integrated way.
• That means establishing lightweight evaluation pipelines, data ingestion templates, and security practices that can scale across multiple ventures without extra overhead.
• These foundations will later evolve into formalized systems as Utopia grows.
• We operate as a compact, AI-native core team — covering product, design, and engineering end‑to‑end.
• Each of us contributes to early foundations in areas like evaluation, data, research, and security, ensuring the platform scales responsibly without added layers or headcount.

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
• 4–8 years in full-stack and backend development (startup or AI context preferred)
• Strong with modern frameworks (React, Vue, Angular,…