Founding Engineer

About the Role

An early-stage AI startup in the freight and logistics space is looking for a Founding Engineer to help shape the product, technology, and company direction from the ground up. This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of deep customer engagement and hands-on engineering — translating real operational problems in sea and air freight into scalable, production-ready AI-powered solutions.

You'll be one of the first technical hires, working closely with the founding team to move from demos to a robust, globally deployed product. The company builds purpose-built AI agents that automate freight operations — think rate requests, bookings, exception handling, and operational intelligence — for top-tier freight forwarders worldwide.

What You'll Do

• Lead customer conversations and translate insights directly into product features and technical strategy.

• Design, build, and ship full-stack applications across the entire product surface.

• Push the AI capabilities of the product forward — working with LLMs, vector stores, and model fine-tuning.

• Drive the transition from demo-mode to scalable, high-quality production systems.

• Help define and shape the product roadmap, technical architecture, and company direction.

What We're Looking For

Dealbreakers:

• 2+ years of software engineering experience.

• Full-stack development proficiency with Node.js, TypeScript, and React, plus backend experience with Python.

Required:

• Hands-on experience with LLM design patterns, vector stores, and model fine-tuning.

• Proven track record designing, building, and deploying scalable products from MVP through to production.

• Demonstrated ability to lead customer conversations and translate feedback into clear product requirements.

• Experience working in a startup or early-stage environment — you're comfortable with ambiguity and moving fast.

Location & Work Arrangement

• Location: Berlin, Germany (hybrid)

• Visa sponsorship: Available

Why This Role

• Founding-level ownership and influence over a product being deployed globally in a massive, underserved industry.

• Work alongside a team with backgrounds at top-tier strategy consultancies and leading logistics technology companies.

• Backed and operating at an early venture stage with strong industry traction.