Founding Product Engineer

About The Role

A fast-growing, pre-seed-funded energy tech startup based in Munich is looking for a Founding Product Engineer to join its early team. The company builds an enterprise-grade, AI-powered SaaS platform that helps industrial companies strategically manage their energy procurement — covering everything from consumption forecasting and flexible procurement to flexibility monetisation.

As one of the first engineers on the team, you will have a decisive say in how the product is built, what the tech stack looks like, and how customers experience the platform. This is a high-ownership, high-impact role for a generalist engineer who thrives at the intersection of product, engineering, and customer collaboration.

No visa sponsorship is available for this position.

What You'll Do

• Own the full product lifecycle — from design and scoping through to deployment and iteration.
• Translate product objectives into clear, actionable requirements in close collaboration with customers.
• Design simple, iterative solutions to complex energy procurement and optimisation problems.
• Develop performant backend services for a data-intensive application.
• Build intuitive, elegant user interfaces for a complex decision-support system.
• Train time-series forecasting models for power consumption and renewables production.
• Develop linear optimisation algorithms aimed at reducing customer energy costs.
• Help choose and evolve the core tech stack (currently centred on PostgreSQL, TypeScript, React, and Python).
  
  

What We're Looking For

Must-haves:

• 2+ years of software engineering experience delivering scalable web applications in an early-stage startup environment.
• Proven track record of delivering full product features independently, in direct collaboration with customers.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals — you build things that are robust, maintainable, and scalable.
• Hands-on experience building backend services for data-intensive applications.
• Experience building frontend UIs for complex decision-support or analytical tools.
• A product mindset: you think about user impact, not just code quality.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a genuine appetite for fast-paced, early-stage environments.
  
  

Strongly preferred:

• Hands-on experience with time-series forecasting and/or linear optimisation.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, TypeScript, React, and/or Python.
• Previous experience as a founding engineer, CTO, or technical co-founder at a startup.
  
  

Nice to have:

• Experience with FastAPI and/or Supabase.
• Interest in or knowledge of energy markets and energy-intensive industrial operations.
• Corporate engineering background is acceptable if paired with a demonstrated startup mindset and grit.
  
  

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: €85,000 – €140,000 per year, depending on experience.
• Meaningful early-stage equity participation (details shared during the process).
• Direct influence over product direction, tech stack, and team culture from day one.
• Work alongside an experienced founding team in a well-backed, mission-driven company.
  
  

Location

This is a hybrid role based in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. You are expected to work on-site in Munich the majority of the week, with flexibility for occasional remote days. Fully remote candidates are not suitable for this position.