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.