Founding Engineer

This is a job that Mila, our talent consultant at Xpreso, is recruiting for on behalf of our client: Xpreso (founding team). She’ll pick the best candidates from Alex’s network. The next step is to speak to Alex. Apply, and you’ll get a personal invitation to speak to Alex.

Job Title

Founding Engineer (Full-Stack) — Voice + LLM Platform (0→1)

Technical Hire #1

Company Description

Xpreso is building a voice-first hiring platform + market network: two voice agents (company + candidate) connected by an insight engine that turns conversations into structured signal — and turns recruiter fees into platform revenue. We’re backed by Merantix and have an experienced founding team (product + platform + go-to-market), early traction, and a big ambition for 2026.

Job Description

Hiring is drowning in noise. CVs and dashboards don’t create understanding — conversations do.

As our Founding Engineer (Full-Stack), you’ll build the core of Xpreso: a matching and insight engine that goes beyond keyword matching and instead builds structured truth from messy, human conversations — with explainable matching, feedback loops, and real-world constraints around latency, cost, privacy, and compliance.

Type: Full-time

Compensation: Competitive salary + meaningful equity

Team: Founding Team / Technical Hire #1

Location

Berlin, Germany (Hybrid)

What You’ll Do

This is a founding seat. You’ll own real surface area: architecture, implementation, and hard trade-offs — and you’ll ship fast.

• Build the core platform end-to-end (candidate + employer experience, dashboards, data layer)

• Ship LLM-powered systems: orchestration, retrieval, structured extraction, evaluation, and matching

• Make voice production-grade: latency, reliability, flow design, and “this actually feels good” UX

• Design a secure-by-default stack (auth, secrets, isolation, logging, abuse prevention, safe data handling)

• Own architecture and technical decisions end-to-end — and keep it pragmatic

Current stack (today): TypeScript (Next.js), Python (FastAPI, async services), Postgres (structured + unstructured + vector), modern cloud tooling, LLM providers + voice infrastructure.

What We’re Looking For

This is not a “tickets in Jira” job. It’s an ownership job.

• Strong experience with TypeScript (Next.js) and Python (FastAPI, async systems)

• Experience building LLM / ML-based systems (ideally in production, or close to it)

• Strong security mindset with best practices baked into how you build

• You’ve owned architecture end-to-end before (or you’ve been the person everyone relied on)

• Hands-on, pragmatic, fast shipper

• Excited about AI coding tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Codex) — and you actually use them

• Bonus: low-latency systems, voice UX, or data-heavy products with messy inputs

How You Work

• High-ownership mindset; you take responsibility for outcomes, not tasks

• Pragmatic builder: you ship fast, iterate, and improve what matters

• Comfortable working across product + data + models where real trade-offs live

• You communicate clearly, think in systems, and keep the bar high without over-engineering

Why This Role

• Technical Hire #1: maximum leverage, maximum ownership, no passenger seats

• Meaningful equity with real upside — you’re building the core

• Competitive compensation (cash + equity)

• Merantix backing: high bar, high support, serious ambition

• Rare timing window: voice + LLMs are finally good enough to reshape workflows people actually hate

• Clear mission: reduce noise, increase signal, and make hiring feel human again — at scale

Who are Alex & Mila?

Alex is Xpreso’s candidate-facing AI recruiter. He gets to know you quickly — what you’re great at, what you want next, and what “good” looks like for you. Then he helps you get in front of the right opportunities, supports you through applications, and helps you prepare.

Mila is Xpreso’s company-facing AI talent consultant. She works with companies to understand exactly who they’re hiring, then recruits from Alex’s network and makes introductions when there’s a strong match.

How to Apply

Step 1: Click “Apply”

Step 2: You’ll receive an email with a personalized invitation to chat with Alex

Step 3: Talk to Alex so he can understand your experience and what you’re looking for

Step 4: Alex will ensure you are being considered for this role by the hiring team

Step 5: If Mila and the team want to meet you, we’ll make the introduction and share next steps. If it’s not the right match, Alex will suggest strong alternatives and keep matching you to relevant roles — for free. You always win.