Founders Factory

Technical Cofounder / CTO | AI & ML PreSeed Startup at Founders Factory (Berlin, Germany)

Founders Factory· Berlin, Germany·

Role details

Employment
Full-Time
Level
Executive

Job description

About us

Expertise is the bottleneck in technical field service. We are building the AI that makes it scale – and learns from every visit, from every job.

  • Stealth-mode AI venture building a copilot that guides technicians at every job like an experienced master craftsman – before, during and after every job
  • Built in the field, not behind closed doors: our product is developed with direct access to thousands of technicians with a leading European real estate industry partner – every feature is tested on real jobs, with results in days instead of months
  • Backed by Founders Factory; founding team in Berlin, MVP built and tested with technicians, now heading towards spin-out and first funding
  • Vision: Europe’s leading field service intelligence layer.

The role

We have built and tested our MVP. Now we are looking for a hands-on Co-Founder & CTO who builds the technology and product that grows and scales the company.

What you will do

  • Own the technology end to end: architecture, roadmap, build-vs-buy decisions, reliability and security
  • Take the tested MVP to a production-grade product used daily by technicians in the field
  • Build reliable AI workflows and repeatable integrations into customer systems such as work orders and asset data
  • Continuously improve the Machine Learning core: retrieval over manufacturer and expert knowledge, multimodal input (photo, voice) and diagnostic reasoning
  • Design and build the learning engine that makes the product smarter with every visit: capturing, reviewing, evaluating and reusing confirmed outcomes – the core of our knowledge moat
  • Set up evaluation, safety and monitoring: expert-reviewed benchmark cases, grounding, escalation and regression testing
  • Build a state-of-the-art UX/UI that technicians want to use every day
  • Spend time with technicians in the field and turn their feedback into product within days
  • Recruit and lead the engineering team as we scale
  • Shape the company as a co-founder: strategy, culture and investor conversations alongside the founding team

What you bring

  • Machine Learning experience, ideally 3+ years applying it in production products (e.g. LLMs, retrieval/RAG, NLP, computer vision, model evaluation)
  • Entrepreneurial mindset: you want to build a company, not just a product – full ownership, bias for action and comfort with ambiguity
  • Experience leading the technical build of a product from zero to one, e.g. as tech lead or founding engineer
  • Hands-on software engineering across backend, APIs, data pipelines and cloud – you still build and ship yourself
  • Sound technical judgement: you know the limits of LLMs, how to test them and when not to use them
  • Product empathy: you enjoy learning from users in the field and making complex work simple
  • Fluent German and English – German is needed for working with technicians and technical source material
  • Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning/AI, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering or a related quantitative field

Nice to have

  • PhD in Machine Learning, NLP, Computer Vision, Information Retrieval or a related field
  • Previous founder or early-stage startup experience
  • Experience with Microsoft Azure and enterprise B2B requirements (security, GDPR, multi-tenant SaaS)
  • Background in field service, industrial, maintenance or proptech software
  • Experience with multimodal AI, voice interfaces or decision-support systems
  • Experience hiring and leading engineering teams

What we offer

  • Competitive compensation package, including a meaningful co-founder equity stake
  • A true co-founder role with ownership of the technology and a real say in the direction of the company
  • An unfair head start: a cooperating partner with thousands of technicians and real repair data from day one – the fuel for a system that learns from every job
  • A tested MVP and a clear path to spin-out and funding
  • Support from Founders Factory’s network across tech, design and growth
  • A mission with real-world impact: helping close the skilled-trades gap in Europe

Location & start

  • Berlin / hybrid, flexible
  • Full-time; start as soon as possible

Why work at Founders Factory

  • Culture: “Power to founders” mindset; values include “suggest solutions not problems”, “be polite, generous and show empathy”, “embrace uncertainty & remain decisive”, “value momentum over perfection” — foundersfactory.com/about-us/
  • Work model: London HQ with multiple global offices; roles likely hybrid/in‑office, though specific policy varies by location.
  • Opportunities: Join the operations team (investment, venture design, data science) or directly join one of the 450+ portfolio startups — foundersfactory.com/join-us/
  • Notable perks: Access to a vast network of founders, investors, and corporate innovators; hands‑on involvement in building startups from scratch.

Application questions