Job description
Founding Engineer
About The Role
An early-stage, AI-native B2B SaaS startup in the procurement technology space is looking for a Founding Engineer to join the team in Berlin. The company is building an AI-first supply chain platform that connects category managers to real-time supplier data and enterprise systems — and is already working closely with real customers.
As a founding engineer, you'll own core product areas end-to-end, influence architecture and engineering culture from day one, and ship iteratively with direct customer feedback. This is a rare opportunity to shape a product, a team, and a technical culture at the very beginning.
⚠️ Visa sponsorship is not available. Candidates must be eligible to work in Germany without employer sponsorship.
What You'll Do
- Own core product areas end-to-end — from AI agent orchestration to the category manager-facing UI.
- Design reliable LLM workflows with evaluation loops, guardrails, and observability built for production.
- Build real-time supplier data pipelines, normalization layers, and integrations with enterprise ERP systems.
- Ship to production daily and collaborate directly with customers to iterate based on real feedback.
- Make architectural decisions across the full stack with a focus on performance, security, and developer experience.
- Define engineering culture, tooling, and processes as the team grows.
- Contribute to the product roadmap and work closely with the founding team on major technical decisions.
- Mentor teammates and grow into an engineering leadership role as the company scales.
What We're Looking For
Required:
- Strong full-stack foundation — comfortable with front-ends, back-ends, and the seam between them.
- Proficiency in TypeScript (front-end and back-end) and Python; experience with Next.js and modern APIs.
- Hands-on experience building SaaS products end-to-end in a startup environment.
- Proven experience designing and operating AI/LLM infrastructure: retrieval, embeddings, evaluation loops, monitoring, and safety guardrails.
- Experience building data pipelines, normalization, and integrations with enterprise systems.
- Domain knowledge in ERP, procurement, or related enterprise software.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills; comfortable working directly with customers and cross-functional teams.
- 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.
Nice to have:
- Hands-on experience with procurement or supply chain domain specifics (e.g. sourcing, spend analysis, contract management).
- Prior experience as a founding or very early engineer at a startup.
- Appetite for engineering leadership and mentorship as the team grows.
Location
Berlin, Germany — on-site
Must be eligible to work in Germany without employer visa sponsorship.
