About the role
We're looking for a second product engineer - someone who can take a problem and turn it into something people use, without being managed through it.
You need to be a strong full-stack engineer who cares about how software feels to use. You need to be comfortable building solo — we have no dedicated design team, and you'll be making interface decisions as well as writing the code behind them.
Given the pace of AI tooling, you're expected to stay current and build fast. We use an agentic stack daily and expect you to as well.
This role sits at the intersection of engineering, interface and AI. You'd work alongside our Head of Product & Technology, who sets direction and still writes code - this isn't a role where you report to someone who left the tools behind. Beyond the two of you, there's a data scientist and a data engineering team.
About Ovation Rights
Ovation Rights is an independent custodian of theatrical rights. We acquire the rights and royalties in great theatrical works and look after them for the long term, backed by patient capital and deep industry experience.
It's an unusual place to be an engineer. The assets are plays and musicals - some of them things you've seen, most of them things you'd recognise. The work is turning a business that has always run on relationships and paperwork into one that runs on good software.
We build our own products rather than buying them, and we're building several at once.
Stack: Python, FastAPI, Postgres, Next.js, TypeScript, and modern AI tooling throughout.
You will be
- Leading development of new features from problem statement to production, across several products.
- Making the interface decisions, not just implementing someone else's. We have no designer and no plans to hire one.
- Using AI and LLMs pragmatically — to accelerate development, power product features, and automate work that shouldn't need a person.
- Working directly with the people who use it. They sit near you, and they will tell you when it's wrong.
- Owning the quality bar on what you ship - maintainable code, sensible tradeoffs, and knowing when good enough is good enough.
- Working with real, consequential data. An error here doesn't produce a bad dashboard. It produces a bad decision about a lot of money.
Requirements
- 3–5 years as a full-stack or product-focused engineer in a startup or small team.
- Highly self-sufficient. You can take a rough problem, work out what good looks like, and build it without someone checking in daily. You also know when to stop and ask — and you know the difference.
- A vast set of experience shipping polished, user-facing features end to end, including the interface.
- Obsessive about AI tooling. You've built with agents, loops or evals, not just autocomplete. You can show us.
- Data modelling in production. You've worked on a relational schema in production and changed live data safely.
- SQL to find the truth. Given a number that looks wrong, you can trace it to the cause.
- Comfortable in ambiguity. Early-stage or high-autonomy environments, where the answer isn't written down anywhere.
- Judgement. You check work carefully, including AI-generated work, and you spot the change that will cause trouble before it ships.
Useful, not required:
- Fintech. Ledgers, statements, reconciliation, payment flows, audit trails. If you've built systems where the numbers have to balance and someone will check, a lot of that transfers directly.
- Rights, licensing, music publishing, royalties or catalogue work, in any part of entertainment.
You don't need to know anything about theatre. We'll teach you the domain, and it's more interesting than you'd expect.
What this is and isn't
You'd own what you ship. You wouldn't own the roadmap - that sits with the Head of Product & Technology. If you're looking for a lead or Head of role, this isn't it.
There are two product engineers, including the person you'd report to. So you'd have someone who knows the codebase and can review your work, and not much else. There's nobody to hand the awkward bits to.
No layers, no politics.
What we offer
- £75,000 base
- 20% bonus
- Pension and private healthcare
- £120 a month theatre ticket budget - we think you should see the work
- Permanent, full-time, office-based in London
- A business backed by patient capital. No runway anxiety, no pivot every six months.
And no budget lines. We don't have an L&D allowance, a conference policy or an equipment form. If you need a course, a book, a second monitor or a ticket to something useful, ask, and we'll sort it. We're a small team - we'd rather trust you than write a policy.
The first 90 days
Weeks 1–2: ship something. Get set up, learn the products, put something small into production. Flag the things you don't trust yet — new eyes catch what we've stopped seeing.
Weeks 3–6: own a feature. Take something from problem to live, end to end, with the team using it.
Weeks 7–12: own an area. Pick up one product surface properly - the decisions inside it and the quality of what ships.
How we hire
- 30-minute call with our Head of Product & Technology. What you've built, how you use AI tools, what you want next. No whiteboard.
- Technical test.
- Culture fit. Meet our Head of Product & Technology, our data scientist and one of our senior partners.
- Offer. We reply to everyone.
Apply
Email [email protected] with a link to something you've built, and a few lines on a time AI tooling got something wrong and how you caught it.
Ovation Rights is an equal opportunity employer. If you need any adjustments during the process, please tell us, and we'll make them.
