Founding Engineer (Full-Stack / AI)

Department: Engineering

Location: Munich

Employment Type: FullTime

About the Role

Join a fast-moving, early-stage logistics technology startup as a Founding Engineer and help build the AI platform that is making global freight forwarding autonomous. As one of the first engineers, you will own critical architecture decisions, ship full-stack features end-to-end, and push the boundaries of applied AI in a production environment — all while working closely with the founding team in Munich.

This is a high-ownership, high-impact role suited to someone with a founder mentality who thrives in ambiguity and wants to shape the technical DNA of a company from the ground up.

What You'll Do

• Own the design, development, and maintenance of the most critical parts of the core product.

• Build reliable, scalable full-stack features that make users radically more efficient.

• Evaluate, benchmark, and fine-tune AI/ML capabilities to maximise domain accuracy and context.

• Continuously experiment with new model releases, frameworks, and agentic techniques in production.

• Ship promising approaches quickly and iterate based on data and real user feedback.

• Navigate and improve large-scale, complex legacy codebases, adding structure and scalability.

• Engineer infrastructure and automation pipelines to support heavy data and AI workloads.

• Collaborate directly with founders and teammates as a hands-on, high-ownership contributor.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• 2–3+ years of professional software development experience (strong personal projects or an entrepreneurial track record may substitute).

• Strong proficiency in Python; familiarity with Go is a significant plus.

• Solid full-stack engineering skills with the ability to move fluidly across backend and cloud environments.

• Hands-on production experience with AI/ML systems: benchmarking, fine-tuning, integrating LLMs, and running experiments in live environments.

• Experience designing and maintaining production-grade systems with clean, scalable architecture.

• Proven end-to-end ownership of features from initial design through to production deployment.

• Experience building cloud-scale systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, and observability.

• Strong CS fundamentals, intellectual humility, and exceptional self-discipline.

• Founder-level drive, adaptability, and a results-oriented, autonomous work style.

• Based in Munich or willing to relocate and work on-site.

Nice to Have:

• Prior startup or entrepreneurial experience.

• Experience or genuine interest in logistics, freight forwarding, or autonomous systems.

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: €60,000 – €80,000 per year

• Equity: Meaningful early-employee options package (up to ~1.5%)

• Opportunity to define and own the technical direction of a product with real market traction

Please note: visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

Location

This is a fully on-site role based in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Candidates must be able to commute to or relocate to Munich.