About this role

ABOUT THE ROLE A pre-seed B2B SaaS startup is building an AI-powered platform that automates the end-to-end lifecycle of public procurement and tender participation for architectural and planning offices in the DACH region. The product handles everything from automated tender discovery and requirements analysis to GDPR-compliant concept generation and document submission. We are looking for a Technical Co-Founder to join as the third founding team member.

You will own the technical vision and implementation from the ground up — shaping system architecture, data and model pipelines, and the product itself. This is a genuine co-founder role with significant equity, not an employee position. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Design and build a GDPR-compliant system architecture hosted in EU cloud environments (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Vertex AI on Frankfurt or equivalent EU regions). - Build the core AI engine that generates complete, compelling proposal concepts from structured company and project data.

- Develop and maintain a reference database for references, certificates, and CVs, and integrate them dynamically into generated concepts. - Implement entity resolution, reliability scoring, and confidence quantification across the data pipeline. - Work deeply in AI/ML (LLMs, RAG, NLP) and/or broadly across full-stack product engineering depending on your strengths. - Help set technical priorities and make architectural decisions within a small, fast-moving founding team.

- Contribute to business strategy during the pre-seed phase alongside your technical responsibilities. WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR Must-haves (dealbreakers): - 5+ years of experience in product/engineering roles delivering AI-powered software with LLM, NLP, and/or RAG capabilities. - Hands-on experience designing GDPR-compliant architectures in EU cloud environments, particularly for NLP/LLM data handling. - Prior experience as a technical founder or technical lead building an AI-first product from zero with full end-to-end ownership.

Required: - Strong experience with LLMs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and NLP integration. - Full-stack development capability with a track record of shipping production-ready AI-enabled products. - Genuine founder mentality — you want to build a company, not just complete tickets. - Pragmatic, shipping-focused working style. - Willingness to join as a co-founder with equity-heavy compensation during the pre-seed phase.

Strongly preferred: - Experience with enterprise data pipelines and secure data handling in EU cloud environments (DSGVO/GDPR context). - Familiarity with German procurement law context (VgV, HOAI) or public sector workflows is a plus. - German language proficiency. - Based in Berlin or willing to work hybrid/remote within the DACH region. COMPENSATION & BENEFITS - Equity: 15–20% co-founder equity with a standard four-year vesting schedule and a one-year cliff.

- Compensation is currently equity-weighted given the pre-seed stage; cash salary will grow as the company raises and scales. - Direct influence over product, architecture, and company direction from day one. LOCATION - Preferred: Berlin, Germany (on-site). - Hybrid or remote within the DACH region considered for the right candidate. - Visa sponsorship: Not available — candidates must already have the right to work in Germany / the EU.

Source listing: ashby_clera