Founding Product Engineer

ABOUT THE ROLE This is a founding engineering role at a pre-seed energy tech startup building an AI-powered platform that helps industrial companies optimize energy procurement and consumption. You will own the full product lifecycle, working directly with customers and founders to turn complex energy market dynamics into scalable, high-impact software. The role carries significant technical and product responsibility from day one. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Own the full product lifecycle from design through deployment. - Translate customer and product objectives into clear, iterative technical requirements. - Design simple, effective solutions to complex energy procurement and optimization problems. - Build performant backend services for a data-intensive application. - Develop intuitive, elegant user interfaces for a complex decision-support system. - Train time-series forecasting models for power consumption and renewables production. - Develop linear optimization algorithms that reduce customer energy costs. - Help choose and evolve the core tech stack across PostgreSQL, TypeScript, React, and Python. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - 2+ years of software engineering experience delivering scalable web applications, ideally in an early-stage startup environment. - Proven ability to deliver full product features independently, end-to-end, in close collaboration with customers. - Strong fundamentals in building robust, maintainable backend services and frontend UIs for data-intensive applications. - Comfort working as a generalist across frontend and backend domains. - Demonstrated product mindset: you translate customer needs into practical technical solutions, not just implement specs. - Startup grit and adaptability; prior early-stage experience is preferred, but a corporate background with strong evidence of these traits is welcome. - Familiarity with PostgreSQL, React, TypeScript, and Python; experience with FastAPI or Supabase is a bonus. - Hands-on experience or strong interest in time-series forecasting and/or linear optimization. - Prior experience as a CTO, founder, or in a similarly broad early-stage technical leadership role is a plus. - Genuine curiosity about energy markets and complex, data-driven business applications. - Able and willing to work on-site in Munich approximately four days per week. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Salary range: 85,000 to 140,000 EUR annually. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role. LOCATION Munich, Germany. Hybrid, with an expectation of approximately four days per week on-site and occasional remote flexibility.