Founding Engineer, NLP Systems & Infrastructure

Role details

ABOUT THE ROLE Join an early-stage AI infrastructure team as its first technical hire, turning a research-grade prototype into a reliable product for enterprise and public-sector users. You will shape the production platform, work hands-on across the stack, and grow into building and leading the engineering team. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Design and own the production architecture, including data and NLP pipelines, AI/ML integrations, CI/CD, observability, and cloud or on-premises deployment. - Build and validate the first production-ready product slice, making practical decisions about infrastructure, security, quality, and delivery speed. - Set the engineering roadmap and establish architecture direction, standards, and a positive team culture. - Work closely with founders and users, iterating on product needs and technical priorities. - Hire and manage an engineering team as the organization grows. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - At least 5 years building and operating production data-intensive or NLP systems, including ingestion, deduplication, entity resolution, queues, and orchestrated pipelines. - Strong Python skills and production engineering experience with automated testing, CI/CD, observability, and monitoring for data or model drift. - Experience with PostgreSQL and at least one graph database, vector store, or search engine. - Practical experience with embeddings, vector search, and language model integration, including cost, versioning, and non-determinism considerations. - Ability to build clean APIs and functional analyst-facing interfaces using React, Vue, or a similar framework. - Experience owning production systems across cloud and on-premises deployment, and willingness and eligibility to obtain a security clearance. - Docker, Kubernetes or Helm, large-scale collection of online discourse data, and German language skills are useful additions. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Salary range: EUR 60,000 to EUR 120,000 annually. Visa sponsorship is available. LOCATION On-site in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.