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.