Founding Central Data Engineer

At hyperexponential, we’re building the AI-powered platform that enables the world’s most critical decisions in a $7 trillion industry, which risks to take, and how to price them. These are the decisions that shape real-world outcomes: whether rockets successfully launch into space, autonomous vehicles make it to market, or communities recover after major storms.

Until now, insurance has been making billion-dollar decisions using outdated tools. We’re changing that. Our platform brings together data, AI, and human expertise to give insurers the fastest path from submission to decision - helping them move faster, act smarter, and take on more risk with confidence.

Backed by a16z, Highland Europe, and Battery Ventures, we’re scaling globally - already trusted by nearly 50 of the world’s largest insurers, with zero churn and billions in premiums flowing through hx.

What began as a single product in one market has rapidly evolved into a multi-product, multi-territory platform powering every stage of pricing and underwriting. AI is at the core of what we do - from building the world’s first domain-specific AI peer programmer for insurance (think GitHub Copilot with a PhD in actuarial science) to shaping agentic workflows that reinvent how this industry operates.

What makes hx different is the people who build it. Here, impact isn’t tied to title or tenure; it’s defined by the challenges you take on and the discipline you bring. Surrounded by peers who stretch you, you’ll do the best, hardest work of your life in a company engineered to endure.

If that sounds like you, join us in building what comes next.

Data sits at the heart of hx’s mission to reinvent how insurers understand, price, and take risk. As we expand globally and deepen our AI capabilities, the need for trustworthy, unified, and AI-ready data becomes a core strategic advantage.

The Central Data team is being built to provide that foundation: a single lakehouse, a shared semantic layer, and a set of retrieval and embedding capabilities that power everything from exec dashboards to agentic workflows. This team partners closely with product, FP&A, people, customer success, and GTM to define and deliver the company’s central source of truth.

As the Founding Central Data Engineer, you will shape this team’s standards, architecture, and culture. You will design and own the full stack of hx’s data platform and build the systems that underpin analytics today and AI systems tomorrow.

• Designing, building and owning hx’s Databricks lakehouse, including workspaces, clusters, Unity Catalog, medallion architecture, Delta tables, RBAC and cost controls, becoming the central source of truth for the company.

• Implementing robust ELT pipelines (Spark, dbt or similar) with tests, documentation, CI and monitoring to deliver daily freshness and agreed hourly SLAs with ≤4h recovery for critical data.

• Modelling cross-domain Gold entities and certified metrics across customers, usage, pricing, finance, people and GTM with clear grain, history and reconciliation paths that power all exec and board reporting.

• Building hx’s first embedding, vector and retrieval layer over curated tables and documents, enabling live RAG and agent workflows such as premium explanations, version tracing and automated KPI summaries.

• Establishing data contracts, data quality checks, audit and observability patterns so teams can trust, debug and self-serve confidently across the platform.

• Acting as a founding partner to product, FP&A, people and GTM by unblocking ambiguous data problems, setting data standards from scratch and driving the company’s AI readiness.

• Built and run a Databricks-style platform with medallion layers, Unity Catalog, RBAC, SLAs, cost tuning and runbooks that served as a company’s primary data environment.

• Delivered multi-domain models linking product/platform, finance, people and GTM data into coherent entities and certified metrics, including revenue reconciliation and historical tracking.

• Created production-grade data pipelines using SQL, Python, Spark and Git workflows with tests, alerts, logging and documentation that elevated engineering quality across a team.

• Built at least one real-world RAG or vector search system using embeddings, thoughtful chunking, metadata, evaluation and safe retrieval patterns.

• Used data as software: robust CI, clear acceptance criteria, debugging discipline, observability, dev-to-prod promotion and well-maintained runbooks.

• Served as an early or founding data hire, translating messy questions from senior leaders into clear designs, spotting systemic issues and raising the quality bar beyond your core remit.

• You prefer operating only within a predefined roadmap rather than shaping unclear, cross-functional problems into structured solutions.

• You avoid deep technical ownership of systems in favour of handing off responsibility to others.

• You’re uncomfortable working at pace, with high autonomy and evolving requirements as we build foundational data infrastructure.

• If reading our Culture Document leaves you feeling neutral rather than energised, hx may not be the place where you’ll do your best work. We’re building something that asks for commitment and conviction, and we want you to feel excited by the opportunity to grow with us.

1. Initial call with our Talent team to kick things off (30 minutes)

2. Manager Interview (60 minutes)

3. Skills Assessment (60 minutes)

4. Values Interview (60 minutes)

5. We offer!

At hx, we’re committed to salary transparency. You’ll always have clarity on pay early in the process - our Talent Partner will share details with you during initial conversations - and we’re working towards publishing salary information for all roles globally.

Because we’re building at the intersection of technology/SaaS and insurance, our roles don’t always map neatly onto traditional benchmarks. Our approach is to design compensation that’s competitive in the market, fair across teams, and aligned with the impact our people make.

Equity: We offer equity across all roles at hx, making it a significant component of total compensation. Your talent partner will be able to share more details about this.

• £5,000 training and conference budget for individual and group development.

• 25 days of holiday plus 8 bank holidays (33 days total).

• Company pension scheme via Penfold.

• Mental health support and therapy via Spectrum.life.

• Individual wellbeing allowance via Juno.

• Private healthcare insurance through AXA.

• Income protection and Life Insurance.

• Cycle to Work Scheme.

Additional perks

• Top-spec equipment (laptop, screens, adjustable desks, etc.).

• Regular remote and in-person hackathons, lunch and learns, socials, and game nights.

• Team breakfasts and lunches, snacks, drinks fridge, and a fun office at The Ministry.

• Access to cutting-edge AI tools and experimentation budget, giving you the freedom to test, learn, and innovate ahead of the market.

• Exceptional opportunities for personal development and growth as we build something remarkable together.

hxers are at the centre of everything we build. We know that progress depends on diverse perspectives, and we are committed to creating an environment where everyone can thrive, grow, and make an impact. We recognise there is always more to do, and we take responsibility for shaping a workplace that is not only diverse but genuinely inclusive.

Diversity is not just the right thing to do, it is key to solving the complex challenges we choose to take on. By welcoming people from all backgrounds and experiences, we strengthen our ability to question assumptions, push boundaries, and design solutions that endure.

If you're energised by complexity and motivated to grow, we encourage you to apply and join our global team.

If this opportunity resonates with you, we encourage you to apply or share it with your connections! Our dedicated talent team reviews all applications, and we promise to provide feedback regardless of the outcome.

For more information about applying and to view other opportunities, you can visit our careers page.

Please note that background checks will be conducted as part of the hiring process to ensure compliance with our governance policies. We handle all background checks sensitively and in full compliance with relevant regulations. All applicant data will be processed in accordance with data protection regulations and our privacy policy.