Munich, Germany
Shape the Future of AI & RoboticsWe are partnering with a well-funded, stealth-mode startup building cutting-edge AI and robotics technology with the ambition to redefine how intelligent systems interact with the real world. Backed by significant funding and led by an experienced founding team, the company is entering an exciting growth phase and is looking for a highly technical Software Team Lead to help shape both the product and engineering organisation from the ground up.
This is a rare opportunity to join early, work directly alongside the founders, and play a pivotal role in building scalable systems, engineering culture, and future technical leadership within the company.
The Role
As the Lead Software Engineer / Team Lead, you will operate in a highly hands-on capacity, spending approximately 80% of your time writing code and solving complex technical challenges, whilst gradually taking on leadership responsibilities as the team scales.
Initially, you will act as a senior individual contributor and technical leader, partnering closely with the CTO and founders to drive architectural decisions, establish engineering best practices, and support the growth of a high-performing engineering organisation.
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys building from scratch, thrives in ambiguity, and wants to remain deeply involved in technology whilst influencing team direction and company strategy.
What You'll Be Doing
Technical Leadership
- Drive the design and evolution of the company's core platform architecture.
- Build scalable, reliable, and maintainable software systems for AI and robotics applications.
- Lead architectural discussions and technical decision-making across the engineering organisation.
- Contribute heavily to software development across backend, cloud infrastructure, and platform services.
- Establish engineering best practices around testing, deployment, monitoring, and software quality.
- Develop and maintain backend services using Python and FastAPI.
- Design and optimise PostgreSQL databases and data architectures.
- Build and maintain cloud-native infrastructure using Docker and Kubernetes.
- Own CI/CD pipelines and deployment processes within GitLab.
- Collaborate across frontend and backend systems using TypeScript and React where needed.
- Support the scalability and reliability of systems running in GCP.
- Partner directly with founders and executive leadership to translate business goals into technical execution.
- Mentor and support engineers across varying levels of experience.
- Introduce structure, processes, and engineering standards as the company grows.
- Help define hiring plans, onboarding processes, and team growth strategies.
- Contribute to the evolution of engineering culture and performance management practices.
The engineering organisation currently consists of:
- Software Engineering Tech Lead
- Software Quality Tech Lead
- 3 Software Engineers
- 1 additional engineer joining shortly
The successful candidate will initially act as a senior technical leader and will have the opportunity to take on formal people management responsibilities as the organisation scales.
What We're Looking For
Essential Experience
- Strong software engineering background with experience building production-grade systems.
- Experience owning or contributing to end-to-end platform architecture, rather than solely individual components.
- Proven success operating within highly ambiguous startup environments.
- Computer Science degree or equivalent technical education.
- Experience working directly with founders, leadership teams, or senior stakeholders.
- Python
- FastAPI
- PostgreSQL
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- GitLab CI/CD
- REST APIs
- Bazel
- TypeScript
- React
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
- Previous engineering leadership or team management experience.
- Experience serving as the bridge between founders/executive teams and engineering organisations.
- Demonstrated success building and scaling engineering teams.
- Experience implementing engineering processes, delivery frameworks, and performance management structures.
- Exposure to AI, robotics, machine learning, or deep-tech environments.
- Experience helping early-stage startups scale through periods of rapid growth.
- Humble, approachable, and low ego.
- Comfortable working alongside engineers of all seniority levels.
- Happy to remain highly hands-on as the company grows.
- Excited by ambiguity, experimentation, and rapid change.
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability.
- Motivated by building exceptional products rather than climbing hierarchical ladders.
- Open to receiving and encouraging technical challenges and debate.
- A natural collaborator who enjoys helping teams succeed.
- Opportunity to shape an engineering organisation from an early stage.
- Direct access to founders and significant influence on company direction.
- Build AI and robotics products with meaningful real-world impact.
- Join a high-calibre engineering team with exceptional technical talent.
- Help define processes, culture, architecture, and growth strategy.
- Significant scope for progression as the business scales.
- Well-funded startup with ambitious long-term plans.
- Fast-moving environment where your work will have visible impact.
Salary: €120,000 - €160,000 base salary
(Ability to flex higher for exceptional candidates)
Additional Benefits:
- Performance-based bonus
- Employee subsidy programmes
- Wellpass membership
- Flexible working arrangements where required
- Significant career growth opportunities as the company scales
