Full Stack Engineer - Must Be DV Cleared
Contract (6+ months) Full Stack Engineer for a sovereign AI company building an AI operating system for air-gapped defence environments. You build features end to end — Python back-end services/APIs and React/TypeScript front end — containerise on Kubernetes and bare-metal Linux, and deploy and support on-site. Active UK security clearance and UK residency required.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Lead
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Fullstack
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- DV clearance (title states must be DV cleared)
- Current, active SC clearance; UK based and able to hold and maintain UK clearance
- Serious commercial Python experience building back end services, APIs and tooling (FastAPI, Django or Flask)
- Serious commercial TypeScript experience on modern front ends (React, Vue or Angular)
- Properly comfortable with Linux without a GUI: shell, networking, processes, permissions, systemd, packages, troubleshooting
- Track record of full stack delivery from database to browser, including relational databases and SQL
- Docker plus automated build, test and deploy (CI/CD) pipelines
- Delivered against firm customer deadlines; methodical rather than frantic when something breaks
- Happy following strict security and handling procedures and getting to UK customer sites when needed
- Clear communication with engineers and with non-technical customers
Full description
Full Stack Engineer
Contract | 6 months+ | UK hybrid | DV Cleared
Morela is proud to be supporting a sovereign AI business whose software has to run where most software cannot: offline, locked down, and under real scrutiny. Their platform is an AI operating system built for exactly those conditions.
They are well funded, growing quickly, and already live on serious government and commercial programmes. The engineering team is small and senior, so nobody here is a spare pair of hands.
The Job
You would sit inside the delivery team on a defence programme and build across the whole stack. Python services and pipelines at one end, the TypeScript front end that operators actually use at the other. The environments you ship into have no internet, the deadlines do not move, and the requirements will.
It is a high trust seat. You take a problem from a conversation with the customer through to something running in production, and you are the one on site when it needs fixing. In exchange you get properly hard problems, senior people around you, and real influence over a product that matters.
Not many engineers get this close to sovereign AI in defence. What is being built here will shape how these organisations work for years.
What the Work Looks Like
- Building and maintaining features top to bottom: Python back end services and APIs, React and TypeScript on the front.
- Getting software into secure, air-gapped and sensitive environments, which means on-site deployment, integration and troubleshooting.
- Owning features properly. Scope it with the technical lead, CTO and customer, build it, test it, ship it, then support it.
- Containerising services and shaping how the platform runs on Kubernetes and bare-metal Linux.
- Writing code you would be happy to inherit, and holding that same line in review.
- Fixing production problems calmly, usually with less tooling than you would like and someone waiting on you.
- Working alongside the data, AI and platform engineers so models, pipelines and infrastructure land as one product rather than three.
- Improving the day to day: CI/CD, observability, security hardening, documentation.
- Sitting in front of customers and partners and turning what they need into something buildable.
What You Will Need
- Python. Serious commercial experience building back end services, APIs and tooling. FastAPI, Django, Flask, whichever you have used in anger.
- TypeScript. Serious commercial experience on modern front ends with React, Vue or Angular.