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. ABOUT THE ROLE 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 RESPONSIBILITIES PLATFORM ENGINEERING & INFRASTRUCTURE - 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, PlanetScale) 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 COLLABORATION & ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE - 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 productionize 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 headc