Backend Developer for Media Verification MVP | Paid sprint, Co-founder Potential

CleenVerify is a media verification start-up for journalistic editorial workflows. We stand to help organisations verify images to check whether they are authentic, AI-generated or manipulated, and return a single auditable verdict they can use to make editorial decisions.

Our ICPs are wire agencies and broadcasters, where the volume of incoming images and evolving AI image generation landscape require a SaaS solution.

We are currently taking part in government-subsidized accelerator in the Netherlands, with active conversations underway at a national wire agency and a regional broadcaster. The MVP of the verification engine is in progress, and I (product founder) am looking for a Backend Developer to collaborate with me on building the architecture and verification mechanisms for the MVP.

What makes this technically interesting

We will not be utilizing an LLM to make the verdicts, we will be building a verification logic algorithm that can be audited and adjusted. The system is documented through ADRs and a written product specification, and we are at the very early stage of building the actual MVP, so any decision here shapes the product greatly.

The role

The developer will be collaborating with me during the MVP sprint which will last until September. We will be following the ADR, and the product specification which are mostly finalized. We will brainstorm on approaches, and the technical expertise of the candidate must work to ensure that our utilization of Claude Code does not result in an MVP that does not meet product standards.

Concretely, that means: reviewing architecture and implementation decisions, catching problems early, pairing on the hard parts, and making sure the engine is built correctly, resulting in an efficient MVP. I am working with Claude Code and am happy to share and refine those workflows together. Using it responsibly and with product discipline will allow us to ship a functioning MVP.

The candidate would need to sign an NDA, and work within the existing ADRs and specification.

Terms

Paid engagement for the current sprint, running through September: €1,500 excluding BTW, for roughly 20 hours across the period. Remote, flexible hours. We will follow an Agile-like approach so catch-up meetings 3-4 times a week as well as progress checks are expected.

Where this could go

If the collaboration works and the person who supports me shows engagement, product understanding, drive and alignment on the long-term vision, we can have a conversation for a role within the start-up including equity.

Who I'm looking for

Strong backend engineering:

Typescript & Python, APIs, containerised services, and comfort with systems that handle continuous throughput with a serverless architecture.

• Following a Product Specification list, and an ADR. Updating it as progress is made.

• Experience with ML model serving or image processing pipelines is a significant plus; computer vision or media forensics are very much desired knowledge areas.

• Fluent with AI-assisted development, and usage methods involving skill generation, setting up rules, auditing code created by Claude, finding errors and so on.

• Direct communicator, actively giving and receiving feedback.

• Interest in the problem space: disinformation, synthetic media, and the infrastructure needed to establish trust in what we see on the internet.