Founding AI Engineer

At Hey Telo, we're building AI agents for the real world.

German tradespeople — the "Handwerker" — are stuck on calls and paperwork instead of focusing on their craft. Our voice AI answers their phones, schedules jobs, and handles customer communication, giving them hours back every day.

We're YC-backed, based in Munich, and at the stage where the next hires shape the company itself.

As Founding AI Engineer, you'll ship our voice agents, build the infra, and sit with the customers using them — the full loop, with no layers between you and the work that matters.

📌 Quick facts:

• Full-Time | Start ASAP
• In-person in Munich
• Compensation: 70k€ - 110k€ (salary + equity)

What you will be working on

• Voice agents. Push our agents toward natural, reliable, trustworthy conversations in German. Cut hallucinations, handle edge cases, get latency under control.
• Backend infra. Build the systems that handle thousands of calls per day without dropping any.
• Customers. Sit with Handwerker. Hear their actual problems. Ship things that solve them. The best decisions we make come out of these conversations, not papers.

✅ You might be a fit if you:

• Are a strong builder
  • Have expertise in modern LLM techniques (transformers, agents, RAG, fine-tuning, context engineering)
  • Have experience in full-stack software engineering (React, Typescript, Python)
  • Big plus: you have experience with building voice agents (Vapi, Pipecat, LiveKit)
  • AI tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) is part of how you work.
• Want full ownership from day one — you build the structure, not wait for it.
• Speak fluent German (at least C1) and actually want to sit with Handwerker, hear their problems, and let that shape what you build.

❌ You might not be a fit if you:

• You have no prior experience in software engineering teams
• Want a remote-first, async culture — this is in-person Munich. A lot of the value comes from being in the room with customers and the team.
• Need clear structures and processes handed to you. (You’ll be the one building them.)

💥 Why join now?

• YC-backed, live in market, 200+ Handwerker using us every day, 40% growth MoM
• One of our first engineering hires — direct line to the founders, customers, and every product decision
• The German Handwerker market is enormous and underserved. Voice AI is hard enough that few will do it well. We intend to be the ones who do.

Perks

• Urban Sports Club membership - feel free to join our weekly team workouts
• Huel stocked daily (our fuel)

🎯 Our hiring process

1. Intro call (30 min)
2. Technical Interview - Take-Home Exercise, including a code walkthrough
3. Lunch with the team