Founding Engineer
About the Role
An early-stage AI logistics startup is looking for a Founding Engineer to help shape the product, technology, and company direction from the ground up. This is a high-impact, hands-on role at the intersection of customer engagement and full-stack development — you'll go from understanding customer pain points to shipping scalable, production-ready AI-powered solutions.
The company builds purpose-built AI agents for freight forwarders operating in ocean and air transport, helping operators automate workflows, improve productivity, and deliver consistent service quality at scale. The team is small, experienced, and backed by operators and technologists with deep roots in freight forwarding and enterprise software.
What You'll Do
- Lead customer conversations, gather insights, and translate them directly into product features and tech strategy.
- Design and build full-stack applications across the entire stack — from React frontends to Python and Node.js backends.
- Push the AI capabilities of the product forward, working with LLMs, vector stores, and model fine-tuning.
- Take the product from demo-mode to robust, scalable, production-grade solutions.
- Help define the technical architecture and company direction as an early team member.
What We're Looking For
Must-haves:
- 2+ years of software engineering experience.
- Full-stack development experience with Node.js, TypeScript, and React; backend development with Python.
- Hands-on experience with LLM design patterns, vector stores, and model fine-tuning.
- Proven ability to design, build, and deploy scalable products from MVP to production.
- Comfortable leading customer conversations and turning feedback into concrete product requirements.
- Experience in startup or early-stage environments — you're at ease with ambiguity and ownership.
Nice to have:
- Background in logistics, freight forwarding, or supply chain technology.
- Experience integrating with enterprise systems (e.g. ERP, TMS, or similar platforms).
Location & Work Arrangement
Based in Berlin, Germany. This is a hybrid role. Visa sponsorship is available.
About the Company
This is a seed/early-stage B2B AI SaaS startup in the freight and logistics sector, building AI agents that automate rate requests, bookings, exception handling, and operational workflows for top-tier freight forwarders. The team brings experience from leading consulting firms, logistics tech companies, and enterprise software organizations.