Job description
Founding Engineer
Company Overview
I’m one of the founders and CTO of Arc.I don’t care what you studied. I care what you ship.We’re an early-stage company being assembled in real time. Your ability to step into chaos, build clarity, and move things forward matters more than any credential.
Job Summary
As the founding engineer, you will own the core architecture, infrastructure, and implementation of our platform. You will work directly with me and my co-founders, make high‑impact technical decisions, and shape the engineering culture from day one.This is founder side-by-side, zero-to-one, first-hire territory.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and own the overall system architecture across backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure.
- Design and implement the AWS‑based infrastructure using Terraform.
- Build and evolve our core application in Nest.js, React, and Postgres, from first prototypes to production‑ready features.
- Implement AI‑powered workflows.
- Establish engineering practices: code quality, testing, documentation, and pragmatic technical decision‑making suitable for an early‑stage startup.
Requirements / Qualifications
- 5+ years of hands‑on software engineering experience, including building and operating production systems.
- Strong experience with at least part of our stack: AWS, Postgres, Nest.js/Node.js, React, Terraform, and willingness to learn the rest.
- Experience using AI coding agents as part of your daily workflow (for example Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot/Codex or similar tools), and a clear opinion on how to use them effectively.
- Ability to make independent technical decisions under ambiguity and own them end‑to‑end, from design to deployment and iteration.
- Comfortable working as a true founding team member: high ownership and strong bias to ship.
Preferred Qualifications
- Prior experience in an early‑stage startup / as a founding engineer.
- Experience designing and implementing LLM‑powered product features (RAG, prompt design, tools/agents, or similar).
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (especially AWS) and Infrastructure as Code, security, and observability.
- Sympathy for functional programming practices (immutability, pure functions, type‑driven design) and bringing that mindset into a pragmatic TypeScript environment.
Location
Berlin, Germany, Remote: false
Employment Type
Not typical. Not balanced. Not easy.It is:long hoursreal pressureambiguous problemsa vertical learning curveearly-career ownership most people never getIf you want comfort and predictability, Arc is not for you.If you want to be pushed harder, and grow faster, than anywhere else, it might be.
Salary & Benefits
- Direct collaboration with the founding team and high autonomy in technical and product decisions.
- Events and workshops to connect, learn, and build something impactful together.
- Meaningful equity and the chance to shape both the product and the company from the ground up.
Application Process
Apply nowFirst nameLast nameE-MailMobileGitHub / Portfolio (recommended)LinkedIn (recommended)CV (optional)UploadSize limit: 100 MB. File limit: 10.Earliest start dateYour answerHow did you hear about this position?SubmitNever submit sensitive personal information, like passwords, through Notion Forms.
