Founding Engineer – Backend

About the Role

A fast-growing, Y Combinator–backed healthtech SaaS startup is hiring a Founding Backend Engineer to shape the core of their platform. You will be one of the earliest engineers, with direct ownership over backend services and cloud infrastructure powering an AI-native product used by leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for someone who thrives at the intersection of scalable systems and real-world product impact.

What You'll Do

• Design and implement robust, scalable, and secure backend services and APIs.
• Own cloud infrastructure end-to-end: automate deployments, set up and maintain CI/CD pipelines, and ensure high availability across environments.
• Monitor system health and implement observability best practices across all environments.
• Apply security best practices and threat modeling to backend systems.
• Model and manage relational data using PostgreSQL or similar databases.
• Containerize services with Docker and apply orchestration concepts in production.
• Collaborate closely with founders and the product team to define and build the technical foundation of the platform.

What We're Looking For

Must-have:

• 2+ years of software engineering experience.
• Proficiency in Python and/or Node.js for backend development.
• Proven experience designing and implementing scalable backend services and APIs.
• Experience with PostgreSQL or other relational databases for data modeling and querying.
• Cloud infrastructure automation using Terraform and Azure.
• Experience setting up and maintaining CI/CD pipelines and automated testing workflows.
• Containerization with Docker (and familiarity with orchestration concepts).
• Implementation of security best practices and threat modeling for backend systems.
• Ability to design for high availability, monitoring, and observability.
• Strong computer science fundamentals.

Nice to have:

• Experience in healthtech, pharma-tech, or regulated data environments.
• Familiarity with agentic AI workflows or LLM-integrated systems.
• Background at a high-growth startup or in a founding engineer capacity.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive compensation package.
• Visa sponsorship available.
• Opportunity to join as a founding team member with significant scope and ownership.

Location

This role is based on-site in Munich, Germany. Candidates must be willing to work from the Munich office full-time.