Founding Engineer
About the Role
We're an early-stage, AI-native startup building a procurement intelligence platform that connects category managers to real-time supplier data and enterprise systems. We're hiring a Founding Engineer to join our small product team on-site in Berlin.
This is a high-ownership role: you'll shape core product areas end-to-end, influence architecture and engineering culture, and ship iteratively with direct customer feedback. As one of the first engineers, you'll work closely with the founding team on major technical and product decisions — and help define what great engineering looks like as the team grows.
What You'll Do
Own core product areas end-to-end, from AI agent orchestration to the UI that category managers use daily.
Design reliable LLM workflows with evaluation loops, guardrails, and observability that work robustly in production.
Build real-time supplier data pipelines, normalization layers, and integrations with enterprise ERP systems.
Ship to production regularly and collaborate directly with customers to iterate on real feedback.
Make full-stack architectural decisions focused on performance, security, and developer experience.
Define engineering culture, tooling, and processes as the team scales.
Contribute to the product roadmap alongside the founding team.
Mentor teammates and grow toward an engineering leadership path.
What We're Looking For
Required:
Strong full-stack foundation with equal comfort across interfaces, back-ends, and the seam between them.
Proficiency in TypeScript (front-end and back-end) and Python; experience with Next.js and modern API patterns.
Hands-on experience designing and operating AI/LLM infrastructure — retrieval, embeddings, latency/cost/quality trade-offs, monitoring, and safety guardrails.
Proven ability to build and ship SaaS products end-to-end in a startup environment.
Experience building data pipelines, normalization, and integrations with enterprise systems.
Domain knowledge in ERP, procurement, or related enterprise software.
Builder mindset: you default to shipping, learning from users, and iterating fast.
Comfortable with ambiguity — able to define what to build as well as how to build it.
Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to work directly with customers and cross-functional teammates.
Nice to Have:
Prior experience in a founding or first-engineer role.
Background in procurement, supply chain, or ERP/procurement software specifically.
Important: Candidates must be eligible to work in Germany without employer visa sponsorship. No visa sponsorship is available for this role.
Location
This is an on-site role in Berlin, Germany. You'll be working alongside the founding team in person day-to-day.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation details will be discussed during the interview process. As a founding team member, you can expect a competitive package including meaningful early-stage equity.