Founding Product Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE This is a founding engineering hire at an early-stage, AI-powered platform built for industrial energy procurement and cost optimisation. You'll join a small, high-conviction team and take genuine ownership — from shaping the architecture to shipping features directly with customers. The platform handles real-time energy market data, forecasting, portfolio management, and optimisation at enterprise scale. If you're a generalist engineer with a strong product mindset, comfort with ambiguity, and a curiosity for data-intensive domains, this role is a rare opportunity to have outsized impact from day one. Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own the full product lifecycle — from design and requirements through to deployment and iteration. - Translate product objectives into clear, actionable requirements in close collaboration with customers. - Design simple, iterative solutions to complex energy procurement and market problems. - Build performant backend services for a highly data-intensive application. - Develop intuitive, elegant user interfaces for a sophisticated decision-support system. - Train time-series forecasting models for power consumption and renewables production. - Develop and refine linear optimisation algorithms to reduce customer energy costs. - Help define and evolve the core tech stack — including PostgreSQL, TypeScript, React, and Python. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR Must-haves: - 2+ years of software engineering experience delivering scalable web applications in an early-stage startup environment. - Proven track record of delivering full product features independently, working directly with customers. - Strong software engineering fundamentals — you write robust, maintainable, scalable code. - Hands-on experience building backend services for data-intensive applications. - Experience building frontend UIs for complex, data-rich decision-support tools. - A genuine product mindset: you think about outcomes, not just outputs. - Comfort thriving in a fast-paced, early-stage environment with high ambiguity and rapid change. Strong advantages: - Experience with time-series forecasting and/or linear optimisation. - Familiarity with PostgreSQL, React, Python; exposure to FastAPI, TypeScript, or Supabase is a plus. - Background as a CTO, founding engineer, or startup founder. - Corporate background (e.g. industrials, energy, consulting) paired with a demonstrated startup mindset and grit. - Curiosity for energy markets, industrial technology, or data-intensive B2B applications. LOCATION This role is based in Munich, Germany. You'll work on-site the majority of the week, with flexibility for occasional remote days. Fully remote arrangements are not available for this position. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS - Salary: €85,000 – €140,000 per year, depending on experience. - Meaningful early-stage equity participation. - Direct influence over product direction, tech stack, and company culture. - A lean, high-calibre team working on a complex, high-stakes problem in the European energy transition.