Founding Engineer

kalkulai
kalkulai

Other Engineering

Munich, Germany

Posted on Aug 18, 2026

We are three founders with a live product, seven pilot businesses and a roadmap far longer than the three of us can build. What is missing is a fourth person who owns the technical whole: the agent backend, the platform, the app, and the calls we make about all three. This is the only role here that is paid and comes with real equity, and the only one where nobody hands you a scope.

What you’ll do

  • Own features end to end across the whole stack: the KAI agent backend, the React platform and the mobile app. No handover, no ticket queue.
  • Extend the multi-agent orchestrator that runs a company’s back office, until its output is reliable enough that an owner forwards a quote to a customer without reading it twice.
  • Ship what pilots keep asking for: quote schema 2.0, the planning board, KAI Voice, e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung) and the DATEV integration.
  • Make the architecture calls. Where we buy, where we build, which debt we take on knowingly and which we refuse.
  • Harden production: error handling, retries, observability, evals and regression tests, so quality never degrades silently.
  • Set how we engineer: review standards, release process, and how we use AI tooling so four people ship like ten.
  • Sit in customer calls. The painter who rings because a quote is wrong is your feedback loop, not something forwarded to you.

What you bring

  • You have shipped software real people depend on, and you were the one who got called when it broke. We care what you shipped, not what year you started.
  • Breadth over depth. Python, TypeScript and infrastructure in the same day does not scare you.
  • AI-native, not AI-curious. Claude, Codex, GPT or Gemini are part of your daily loop, and you have opinions about where they fail.
  • You decide with incomplete information and own the outcome, including the calls that turn out wrong.
  • Senior is what we picture. If you are earlier in your career but have the receipts, apply anyway and show us the work instead of the CV.
  • English fluent. German helps a lot, because our customers are German craftsmen and you will hear them first-hand.
  • You want equity because you intend to be here when it matters, not as a bonus on top of a salary.
Stack
PythonFastAPILangChainpgvectorTypeScriptReactSupabasePostgreSQLDocker

Why KalkulAI

  • Radical ownership from day one. No fixed job description, you own outcomes.
  • A live product with real pilot customers, not a lab hypothesis.
  • You never start from zero: you build on real, existing progress.
  • AI-native: Claude, Codex, GPT and Gemini are part of how we work every day.
  • You are part of the founding team, not next to it. Architecture, stack and standards are yours to set.
  • Honest deal: a salary from day one, small because we are pre-seed, plus equity that is not a gesture.
  • Backed by EXIST, TU Munich and UnternehmerTUM.

How to apply

  1. 1 Apply with your CV, GitHub and a short note on what you built and what you owned when it broke, to leon@kalkulai.de.
  2. 2 A first call with the founders, 30 to 45 minutes. We show you the product, the numbers and the parts that are still ugly.
  3. 3 After a yes, a paid work session on a real problem from our backlog, then the deal. Nothing is fixed in advance: role, equity and salary are negotiated, and the share follows what you bring.
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