Founding Software Engineer at Hera (YC S25)
We're building the world's first AI motion designer that creates professional animations in seconds.
About Hera
Video is the most effective medium, but video creators waste countless hours animating seconds of content. Motion design tools like After Effects require mastering complex user interfaces, turning creative work into button-clicking hell. We're starting with motion design because it's the most painful and expensive part of video creation.
Hera is the first AI motion designer that creates professional animations through conversation. Unlike video-gen tools, Hera generates code-based animations where every parameter can be fine-tuned through prompts or on-canvas editing, giving users the control of After Effects with the simplicity of Lovable.
In our first two weeks after launch, users created over 200,000 animations.
Our founders:
Peter Tribelhorn (CEO) built YouTube channels with 50B+ views. Chia-Lun Wu (CTO) was one of the first developers at Vyond, where he built their video editor used by 20,000 businesses today.
About the Role
This is our first hire. You won't just be an engineer, you'll be a founding member shaping the technical foundation of a company that will enable 5% of the world's population to create video content.
Building creative software is uniquely challenging: there's no fixed process users follow. Everyone wants to create something new, express their ideas differently. This means endless edge cases and the need for exceptionally robust software.
You will:
Partner with the founders to deliver user-centric product solutions from concept to production
Own end-to-end development of full-stack features with scalable architecture design
Build and optimize agentic LLM systems incorporating tool-calling, multi-step reasoning, and MCP protocols
Optimize LLM inference performance, cost efficiency, and latency across multiple model architectures
Develop a high-performance motion graphics engine
Drive architectural decisions that support scalable growth to millions of users
Tech Stack
Our technology choices evolve with our needs. Current core technologies include TypeScript, React.js, Next.js, PostgreSQL, GCP/AWS, and our proprietary motion graphics engine. We prioritize learning velocity, end-to-end delivery, and adopt new languages or frameworks when they best serve our users and product goals.
What Makes You a Great Fit
You're hungry.
Not just ambitious, but obsessed with building something massive
You're entrepreneurial.
You've built things before and demand ownership
You thrive in ambiguity.
No roadmaps, no PMs, just problems to solve
You have a growth mindset.
We're small today, but building something huge. To grow the company, each of us needs to grow personally
You work like an athlete.
High performance, consistent improvement, whatever it takes to win
You want to work in-person in Berlin
(we help you relocate if needed)
We hire for slope, not intercept.
We don't care about credentials; we care about trajectory
You're NOT a Good Fit If:
You're picky about what you work on
You lack curiosity or the hunger to learn
You prefer structured environments with clear boundaries
You think AI is just hype
You want to specialize in one technology
Why Hera?
We're building this team like Real Madrid: small, elite, with each person being a superstar. We believe we can reach $100M ARR with less than 20 people. As a founding engineer, you'll have:
Life-changing equity stake
Above-market salary
Build a product used by thousands daily
The chance to redefine how millions of users create video
Office in Berlin Mitte (1 minute from Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz)
All meals on us - we serve lunch and dinner 6 days/week