---
title: 'Staff Backend Engineer, Platform at Zeit AI (YC S24)'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-backend-engineer-platform-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-cm37hzfgyx8y'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-17'
---

# Staff Backend Engineer, Platform at Zeit AI (YC S24)

- **Company:** Zeit AI (YC S24)
- **Location:** Munich, Germany
- **Compensation:** €95k–€270k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-09-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-17
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zeit-ai/ae0852ac-f7f3-4301-82a9-0edd8fdf47bc

## Job description

Opportunity

- ZeitMind is an autonomous data engineer for mid-market businesses. Agents and people work the same company data: ingest, pipeline, clean, analyse, build operational apps
- we are growing fast and will be onboarding multiple enterprise customers a week. The backend isn't ready yet, your impact will decide the speed at which we can grow
- load growth is compounding: more customers, multiple users per customer, many agent interactions per user and multiple agent artifacts (data pipelines, schedules, analyses) coming out of the interactions
- you own the platform

## What you'll do

- scale a multi-tenant Postgres under unpredictable load: query and I/O optimisation, read/write separation, horizontal scaling
- make agent-driven workloads survivable: one user can spin up 30 table syncs, some running hours, while others query large sources
- manage the sandbox layer: Docker containers where agents run queries and reverse-engineer files, with compute and memory budgets
- own connectivity into customer networks: SOCKS5 over WebSockets, authentication, routing
- scope the architecture and build it

## What we're looking for

- staff or principal level, still hands-on, writing production code
- built and scaled multi-tenant data platforms in a B2B startup or platform company before
- deep Postgres or database knowledge: query plans, locking, I/O, caching, replication, sharding
- understands startup pace and ownership without specs
- pragmatic over ideal, wants to build foundations right without overengineering
- strong TypeScript
- English C1, German a plus

## Nice to have

- experience at a data platform or warehouse company (Snowflake, Databricks, Cloudflare or similar)
- networking depth: proxies, VPN, routing

Location

- preferred: Munich, on-site. We support relocation within Europe
- already in London? We can make that work. We have people here and are opening a small office, and we'd expect regular Munich travel. In-person culture is important to us

Tech stack

- TypeScript end to end. Bun, tRPC, Postgres, Supabase. React frontend (Mantine, TanStack Query). Docker, job/process management, VPN/routing, agentic frameworks

## About Zeit AI (YC S24)

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zeit AI builds an autonomous AI Forward Deployed Engineer that connects to business systems (ERP, CRM, SAP) and turns raw data into operational applications and decisions using natural language.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Startup) — Y Combinator S24 batch, Seed stage
- **Headquarters**: Munich, Germany
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Leopold von Waldthausen (CEO) and Marvin Bornstein (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Data Infrastructure and Analytics, Enterprise AI
- **Target customers**: Mid-market and enterprise companies in Europe, specifically heads of controlling, operations managers, and business operators who rely on ERP, CRM, and SAP systems
- **Mission**: To build the first AI Forward Deployed Engineer for the European market — an autonomous system that connects to source systems, prepares messy data, and turns business questions into operational applications in natural language.

## Products & Services
- **ZeitMind**: The core product — an autonomous AI system that connects to business systems (ERP, CRM, SAP, etc.), cleans messy data, and builds custom operational applications and dashboards using natural language. No IT or data engineering team required. Use cases include inventory control, procurement analytics, financial controlling, and margin risk detection.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Total Funding**: $625,000 USD (Seed round led by Y Combinator, with a prior pre-seed round)
- **Key Metric**: Reached €1M ARR within 12 months of founding
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Y Combinator (S24 batch), backed by top global investors and industry leaders
- **Growth Signals**: 10 employees (+66.7% YoY), 8 active job postings, reached €1M ARR in first year, customer results include €700k saved through AI inventory control, €24M in unified procurement data, 370 hours back per month from automated reporting

## Competitive Advantages
- **Founder-market fit**: Both founders are former Palantir Forward Deployed Engineers who built and deployed the first instances of Palantir's AIP platform and generated over €50M in new revenue for large industrial clients
- **Speed of deployment**: Claims to deliver measurable results within weeks, not months — a risk-free, low-friction onboarding model
- **Natural language interface**: Business users can build analytics, dashboards, and workflows without engineering effort, using plain language
- **In-person, forward-deployed model**: Engineers work directly at customer sites, ensuring deep integration and rapid value delivery
- **YC-backed credibility**: Part of Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with strong investor backing

## Strategic Focus
- **European market dominance**: Specifically targeting European industrial and mid-market companies that rely on SAP, ERP, and CRM systems
- **Product-led growth**: Building an autonomous system that scales from initial use cases (inventory, procurement, controlling) to full operational control
- **Hiring aggressively**: 8 open positions across engineering, forward-deployed, sales, and GTM — signaling a push to scale the team and customer base
- **Proven ROI model**: Using a six-month engagement to prove value, track savings, and validate impact before scaling

## Why Work Here
- **High-impact, small team**: A team of 10 engineers, builders, and operators — every hire has outsized ownership and impact
- **YC-backed startup**: Part of Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch, with strong investor support and a clear growth trajectory
- **In-person culture**: Munich-based, in-person work — not remote. Engineers are forward-deployed at customer sites, not behind a screen
- **Cutting-edge AI work**: Building with frontier models to solve real, messy enterprise data problems — the kind of work that was previously only possible at Palantir or large tech companies
- **Founding team pedigree**: Founders are ex-Palantir (Leopold led DACH business, Marvin deployed first AIP instances). Early engineers come from Palantir, BCG, and top European tech companies
- **Transparent and principled culture**: The team operates on five core principles: Bias for Action, Live Growth, Ownership, Candor, and Craftsmanship
- **Competitive compensation**: Salaries range from €70K–€120K EUR for engineering roles, with equity (0.10%–1.00%) for founding team members
- **Real business impact**: Customer results include €700k saved in inventory control, €450k in procurement savings, and 90% reduction in Excel reporting

## Sources
1. [zeit-ai.com](https://www.zeit-ai.com/)
2. [zeit-ai.com/about-us](https://www.zeit-ai.com/about-us)
3. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/zeit-ai)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/zeit-ai)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zeit-ai)

## Other roles at Zeit AI (YC S24)

- [People & Operation Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/people-operation-manager-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-094t4n3wg6pk) — Munich, Germany
- [Chief of Staff](https://feeny.ai/job/chief-of-staff-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-seeg8k8zh4z8) — Munich, Germany
- [Growth Marketing Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-manager-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-0dvdjm9n1c0g) — Munich, Germany
- [(Senior) Business Development Representative (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-business-development-representative-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-3pc48ydrpeyw) — Munich, Germany
- [Forward-Deployed Engineer (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-jxancbsvcpst) — Munich, Germany
- [(Junior) Account Executive (f/m/d)](https://feeny.ai/job/junior-account-executive-f-m-d-zeit-ai-yc-s24-munich-h3wk4gmstxz8) — Munich, Germany