Founding Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE An early-stage AI-native procurement SaaS startup based in Berlin is looking for a Founding Engineer to join its founding product team. You'll help build an AI-first platform that connects procurement and category managers to real-time supplier data and enterprise systems. This is a high-ownership, high-impact role: you'll shape the product, the architecture, and the engineering culture from the ground up — shipping daily and iterating directly with customers. This is an on-site role in Berlin. No visa sponsorship is 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 interfaces that category managers use daily. - Design reliable LLM workflows with evaluation loops, guardrails, and observability that hold up in production. - Build real-time supplier data pipelines, normalization layers, and integrations with enterprise ERP systems. - Ship to production continuously and collaborate directly with customers to iterate based on real feedback. - Make architectural decisions across the full stack, balancing performance, security, and developer experience. - Define engineering culture, tooling, and processes as the team grows. - Contribute to the product roadmap and work closely with founders on major technical decisions. - Mentor teammates and grow into an engineering leadership path as the company scales. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR Required skills & experience: - Strong full-stack foundation with attention to both interfaces and 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. - Hands-on experience with LLMs, retrieval, and embeddings, including trade-off reasoning around latency, cost, and quality. - Proven ability to design and operate production-grade AI/ML workflows with 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. - Ownership mindset — thrives in ambiguity, defines what to build as well as how to build it, and defaults to shipping and learning fast. Nice to have: - Specific experience in procurement technology or supply chain platforms. - Background in founding-team or seed-stage environments. LOCATION - Berlin, Germany — on-site - Visa sponsorship is not available; applicants must have existing eligibility to work in Germany.