Founding Engineer (Full-Stack/AI)

About the Role

This is an early engineering hire at a seed-stage AI logistics startup, joining a small founding team to build and scale the core product that makes freight forwarding operations autonomous. You will drive critical architecture decisions, ship full-stack features, and push AI capabilities in production, directly shaping the company's technical direction from the ground up.

What You'll Do

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

• Build reliable full-stack features that make users measurably more efficient.

• Evaluate, benchmark, and fine-tune AI capabilities to maximize 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 user feedback.

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

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

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

What We're Looking For

• Hands-on experience with AI/ML and LLM systems: benchmarking, fine-tuning, and integrating models in production.

• Practical logistics or freight-forwarding domain knowledge.

• Strong full-stack engineering skills with fluency across backend and cloud environments.

• Fluency in Python; familiarity with Go is a strong plus.

• Proven track record building robust, real-world production systems (not primarily mobile or narrowly algorithmic/computer-vision work).

• Comfort working with complex legacy codebases, automating systems, and engineering for scale.

• Startup or entrepreneurial experience, with founder-level drive, ownership, and adaptability.

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

• Around 2 to 3 years of professional experience, though strong project track records are equally welcome.

• Fluent spoken English sufficient for fluid technical discussion.

• Willingness to work on-site in Munich or to relocate.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: 60,000 to 90,000 EUR annually. Equity participation via options (up to approximately 1.5%) is available as part of an early-hire package. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. This is not a remote role.