Founding Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Founding Engineer based in Germany.

This is a high-impact founding engineering opportunity at an early-stage AI infrastructure startup. You’ll work directly with the founder to transform a working AI agent product into robust, scalable infrastructure capable of supporting significant growth. As the first engineering hire, you’ll have broad ownership across backend systems, infrastructure, frontend development, and agent architecture. You’ll design and operate the agent runtime, including orchestration, memory, verification, and multi-agent workflows. Your technical decisions will shape the architecture, engineering standards, and development culture from the ground up. The role offers a path toward CTO-level responsibility as the engineering organization grows, with direct exposure to real customers and the opportunity to ship improvements frequently.

• Transform an existing AI agent product into scalable, reliable infrastructure capable of supporting substantial user growth.

• Design, build, and operate the core agent runtime, including orchestration, memory, verification, and multi-agent workflows.

• Develop across the full technology stack, including backend services, infrastructure, frontend applications, and AI agent systems.

• Take technical initiatives from initial design through implementation, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement.

• Establish the foundational technical architecture, engineering standards, development practices, and tooling for the engineering organization.

• Work directly with the founder to define technical priorities and make high-impact product and architecture decisions.

• Ship product and infrastructure improvements frequently, using feedback from real customers to guide iteration.

• Build systems that are reliable, maintainable, observable, and capable of evolving as the product and customer base grow.

• Help establish the technical foundation and engineering culture that will support future team expansion.

• Take increasing ownership of technical strategy and organizational direction, with the potential to grow into CTO-level responsibility.

Requirements:

• At least 2 years of professional software engineering experience, or an equivalent track record of building and shipping real-world systems as a founder, solo builder, or early technical lead.

• Hands-on experience building and operating LLM-powered or AI agent systems in production, particularly systems used by real customers.

• Strong full-stack capabilities spanning backend engineering, infrastructure, frontend development, and AI/agent systems.

• Demonstrated ability to make independent technical decisions and choose pragmatic solutions in an early-stage environment.

• Experience taking a functional prototype toward production scale through architectural improvements, data modeling, runtime design, orchestration, and reliability work.

• Strong track record of shipping frequently, iterating based on user feedback, and delivering meaningful improvements under tight timelines.

• Ability to clearly explain the technical challenges, architectural decisions, and tradeoffs involved in systems you have built.

• Comfortable operating with significant ambiguity, limited process, and broad responsibility.

• Founder or early-stage startup experience is highly valuable, particularly experience building products from an early stage.

• Familiarity with recruiting, agencies, professional services, or other service-delivery businesses is a plus.

• Demonstrated commitment and stability in previous roles is preferred.

• Based in Europe initially, with willingness to relocate to San Francisco within the first year.

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation: Annual salary of €80,000–€140,000, depending on experience and fit.

• US visa sponsorship: Support is available for relocation to the United States.

• Relocation support: Assistance is provided for the move to San Francisco within the first year.

• Remote flexibility: Work remotely from within Europe during the initial period.

• Founding-level ownership: Join as the first engineering hire and have significant influence over the product, architecture, and engineering organization.

• CTO growth opportunity: Potential to develop into a CTO-level leadership position as the company and engineering team expand.

• Direct founder collaboration: Work closely with the founder on product direction, technical strategy, and company-building decisions.

• Broad technical scope: Build across AI agents, backend systems, infrastructure, frontend applications, and production operations.

• High-impact environment: Ship directly to real customers and see the impact of your technical decisions quickly.

• Early-stage autonomy: Help establish engineering practices, standards, architecture, and culture from the ground up.

We use an AI-powered matching process to ensure your application is reviewed quickly, objectively, and fairly against the role's core requirements. Our system identifies the top-fitting candidates, and this shortlist is then shared directly with the hiring company. The final decision and next steps (interviews, assessments) are managed by their internal team.

We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!

Why Apply Through Jobgether?

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