Founding Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 10, 2026. First seen by Alion on Sep 3, 2026.
Voice + LLM Platform (0→1) | Technical Hire #1
Hiring is drowning in noise. CVs and dashboards don’t create understanding. Conversations do.
We’re building WhyBrilliant, a voice-first hiring platform and 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. Career clarity, served hot.
We’re backed by Merantix, one of Europe’s leading Tier 1 AI investors. You’ll join an experienced founder team (product + platform + go-to-market) with early traction already on the board-and a very big ambition for 2026.
This is a massive market. Hiring is a multi-hundred-billion € mess globally, and it’s ready for a new system built on conversations, not forms.
The Exciting Problems You’ll Solve
The heart of WhyBrilliant is a matching engine that doesn’t just "keyword match" CVs. It builds structured truth from messy, human conversations. If you like building systems where product, data, and models collide-this is the main course.
You’ll help us build an engine that can:
- Extract Signal: Turn voice conversations into clean, reusable signal (skills, intent, constraints, seniority, comp, motivation, culture cues).
- Reimagine Roles: Model roles as outcome-based success profiles, not static job ads.
- Ensure Transparency: Do matching that’s explainable (why this person, why this role) instead of relying on black-box vibes.
- Drive Feedback Loops: Learn over time using signals from the marketplace (interview outcomes, hiring decisions, retention proxies).
- Build Defensibility: Stay robust against garbage input, prompt attacks, and "creative storytelling" from both sides.
- Perform at Scale: Work fast and reliably under real constraints (latency, cost, privacy, compliance).
What You’ll Do (Day-to-Day)
This is a founding seat. You’ll own real surface area: architecture, implementation, and hard trade-offs-and you’ll ship fast.
- End-to-End Build: Construct the core platform from scratch (candidate + employer experience, dashboards, data layer).
- AI Orchestration: Ship LLM-powered systems including orchestration, retrieval, structured extraction, evaluation, and matching.
- Voice Engineering: Make voice production-grade by optimizing latency, reliability, flow design, and creating a "this actually feels good" UX.
- Security by Design: Build a secure stack (auth, secrets, isolation, logging, abuse prevention, safe data handling).
- Technical Leadership: Own architecture and technical decisions end-to-end, keeping them highly pragmatic.
The Stack (Today)
If you have strong opinions here: great. Bring them. This is a 0→1 build, not a "maintain legacy" job.
- TypeScript: Next.js
- Python: FastAPI, async services
- Database: Postgres (structured + unstructured + vector)
- Cloud: Modern cloud tooling (optimized for speed + reliability)
- AI/Voice: Leading LLM providers + modern voice infrastructure
What We’re Looking For
This is not a "tickets in Jira" job. It’s an ownership job.
- Core Languages: Strong experience with TypeScript (Next.js) and Python (FastAPI, async systems).
- AI/ML Experience: Proven experience building LLM and ML-based systems (ideally in production, or very close to it).
- Architecture & Ownership: You’ve owned architecture end-to-end before (or you’ve been the person everyone relied on).
- Security Mindset: You bake best practices and security into how you build from day one.
- Execution: You are a hands-on, pragmatic, and fast shipper.
- Modern Workflows: Excited about AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex)-and you actually use them.
Bonus points if you have: Built low-latency systems, developed voice UX, or worked on data-heavy products dealing with messy inputs.
Why Join?
- Maximum Leverage: As Technical Hire #1, you have maximum ownership and no passenger seats.
- Real Upside: Meaningful equity-you are building the core.
- Top-Tier Comp: Competitive compensation (cash + equity); we want A-players, not bargains.
- Strong Backing: Supported by Merantix, meaning a high bar, high support, and serious ambition.
- Rare Timing: 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.
View this role and more opportunities at WhyBrilliant: https://whybrilliant.com/app/jobs/founding-engineer-whybrilliant-berlin