Technical Co-Founder at Clera in Berlin, Berlin, DE

About the Role

A pre-seed AI SaaS startup automating public procurement processes for the DACH region is looking for a Technical Co-Founder to join as the third member of the founding team. You will own the end-to-end technical implementation of a GDPR-compliant, AI-powered platform — shaping its architecture, data pipelines, and LLM-driven features from the ground up.

This is an equity-heavy, founder-level role designed for someone who wants to build a company, not just fill a seat. The company is currently in its pre-seed phase, with incorporation in preparation and a public funding application in progress.

What You'll Do

• Join as a technical co-founder with 15–20% equity on a standard four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff.
• Design and own the overall system architecture hosted in the EU, with a strong focus on GDPR compliance (e.g., using AWS Bedrock or Vertex AI in EU regions such as Frankfurt).
• Build the core AI engine that generates complete, compelling proposal and performance concepts from structured company data.
• Develop and maintain a reference database for references, certificates, and CVs, and integrate them into auto-generated concepts.
• Implement entity resolution, reliability scoring, and confidence quantification across the data pipeline.
• Work either deeply in AI/ML (LLMs, RAG, NLP) or broadly across full-stack product engineering, depending on your strengths.
• Help set technical priorities and drive architectural decisions within a small, agile founding team.
• Contribute to business strategy during the pre-seed phase alongside the other co-founders.

What We're Looking For

Must-haves (dealbreakers):

• 5+ years of experience in product or engineering roles delivering AI-powered software with LLM, NLP, or RAG capabilities.
• Proven experience designing GDPR-compliant architectures in EU cloud environments, particularly for NLP or large language model workloads.
• Prior experience as a technical founder or technical lead who has built an AI-first product from zero with full end-to-end ownership.

Required:

• Hands-on experience with LLMs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and NLP integration in production systems.
• Full-stack development capability with a track record of shipping production-ready AI-enabled products.
• Openness and commitment to joining as a technical co-founder with an equity-based compensation structure.

Strongly preferred:

• Experience with enterprise-grade data pipelines and secure data handling in EU cloud environments (AWS Bedrock, Vertex AI, or equivalent).
• Familiarity with German regulatory context (DSGVO/GDPR, and ideally public procurement law such as VgV).
• German language proficiency — the product and target market are German-speaking.
• Based in Berlin, or willing to work hybrid/remote within the DACH region.

Mindset:

• Pragmatic and shipping-focused — you prioritise working software over endless polishing.
• Genuine founder mentality: you want to own outcomes, not just complete tasks.
• Comfortable with the ambiguity and pace of a very early-stage startup.
• Collaborative — you thrive working closely with a small, high-trust team.

Compensation & Benefits

• Equity: 15–20% co-founder equity with a four-year vesting schedule and one-year cliff.
• Salary: Compensation during the pre-seed phase is weighted heavily toward equity; cash salary will scale as funding is secured.
• Visa sponsorship: Not available — candidates must already have the right to work in Germany.

Location

• Primary location: Berlin, Germany (on-site preferred).
• Hybrid or remote arrangements within the DACH region are possible depending on the candidate.