Founding Product Engineer (all genders)

Avoltra
Avoltra

Product · Full-time

Munich, Germany

EUR 90k-140k / year + Equity

Posted on Oct 29, 2026
Apply now

Munich (hybrid) · Full-time · €90–140k total compensation (incl. equity)

TL;DR

We're avoltra — we build the operating system for industrial energy procurement and flexibility. We've raised €2.3M from Project A (one of Europe's top-tier seed VCs) and angels including Martina Merz (former CEO of ThyssenKrupp) and Michael Wax (Co-founder of Forto). We manage 1.5 TWh of energy across reference customers like DPD, Rehau, Fels, RAG and N-ERGIE, saving each of them a 6-figure sum annually.

We're a team of repeat operators and builders — previously at Luminovo, Cliniserve, Manex AI and Cartken — and we're hiring product engineer #4 to help us turn that traction into a category-defining product.

What you'll work on

As Founding Product Engineer, you'll own meaningful chunks of the product end-to-end — from problem definition with customers through to deployed code. You'll work directly with your product engineering colleagues (Jaakko, Tim, Alex and Tobias) and our product and revenue leads (Franz, Angelo).

Concretely, in your first 6 months you might:

  • Ship an AI agent that finds six-figure savings by parsing hundreds of thousands of energy bills for one of our retail customers
  • Lay down backend foundations — data pipelines, APIs, and services — that scale from our current customer base to dozens of large industrials
  • Extend the functionalities and improve the design of our customer-facing decision support UI that operators actually use to run their energy strategy day-to-day
  • Expand our optimisation engine that generates cost-optimal asset schedules for a >10 MW industrial consumer based on renewables forecasts and EPEX spot prices — turning MILP into millions of euros of annual savings
  • Train time-series forecasting models for power consumption and renewables production that feed directly into the optimiser

    • You'll have a real say in what we build, how we build it, and how the team grows around you.

    Tech Stack
    We build with PostgreSQL, TypeScript/React on the frontend, and Python for data engineering, optimisation and forecasting. Our stack is intentionally still maturing — joining now means helping shape the tools we'll rely on for years. We value an open, technology-agnostic mindset and strong engineering fundamentals over deep expertise in any one framework.

    How we build: AI-native engineering
    We embrace AI in building a modern tech company and AI-coding assistants like Claude Code are involved in everything we build. We're also building products on top of LLMs, which means we deal head-on with the messy parts like evaluating non-deterministic systems and figuring out where deterministic logic should hand off to a model and back. We look for people who are equally excited about the future and are constantly critically questioning how they can deliver most value together with AI while remaining in control of validating the outcomes responsibly.

    Where we are as a company

  • €2.3M raised from Project A (top-tier European seed VC) and angels including Martina Merz (ex-CEO ThyssenKrupp) and Michael Wax (Co-founder, Forto) — runway to build, hire, and ship
  • 2 TWh of industrial energy under management
  • 6-figure annual savings per customer, demonstrated and contracted
  • Reference customers: DPD, Rehau, Fels, RAG, N-ERGIE — large enterprises in logistics, manufacturing, mining and utilities
  • Past PMF discovery: repeatable sales motion with named industrial accounts; expanding within existing customers; the question is no longer "will they pay?" but "how fast can we scale what works?"

    • You're joining at the inflection point — the product works, customers are paying, and the next 12 months are about scaling our impact with first customers.

    What you bring

  • Solid software engineering fundamentals — you can reason about data models, system design, and tradeoffs across the stack
  • Comfortable shipping production code — we care more about how you think than which language is on your CV, almost all of the code we write is written by AI anyway
  • A product mindset: you talk to users, you push back on requirements, you ship things that work
  • Fluent with AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, etc.) — you've used them on real projects, know where they shine and where they break, and have opinions about how they change the way teams work
  • Curiosity about energy markets, optimisation, or data-intensive B2B products (or a track record of getting deep into new domains quickly)
  • Experience in early-stage / high-velocity environments
  • Bonus: experience building products on top of LLMs — eval design, handling non-determinism, prompt iteration, retrieval, agent architectures, or hybrid model-plus-deterministic systems
  • Bonus: hands-on experience with time-series forecasting, linear/convex optimisation (PuLP, Gurobi, HiGHS, OR-Tools), or large-scale data pipelines

    • You feel you don't tick every box?
    Apply anyway. The "perfect" candidate rarely exists — what matters is your drive to learn, ship, and own outcomes.

    Compensation & how we work

  • Base salary: €85,000–115,000, depending on experience
  • Equity: 30-90k — standard terms; 4y vesting with 1y cliff
  • Hybrid in Munich: We work together from our office 4-5 days a week near Hbf and value in-person collaboration but enable remote work as needed — we focus on outcomes, not office hours. Full remote is on the table for outlier candidates we'd otherwise miss but requires commuting to Munich regularly (e.g. 1 week a month).
  • Small team, full ownership: you'll be involved in technical and product decisions that matter from day one
  • Steep learning curve: energy markets, optimisation, enterprise software, scaling a company — all at once
  • Your ideal setup: pick the equipment that lets you do your best work

    • Application Next Steps

    Send your CV (and any questions) to jaakko@avoltra.io. Referrals welcome but optional. We aim to reply within a working day.

    The people you'll be working closely with

    Jaakko (Engineering)

    I co-founded and scaled Cliniserve, a health-tech startup, as CTO for seven years. I enjoy building systems that solve real problems and helping others grow. I value open communication and continuous learning.

    We’ll build a solid product foundation — pairing on problem definition, solution scoping and solution architecture to deliver customer value in a scalable manner.

    Tim (Engineering)

    Before avoltra, I co-founded Manex AI and led engineering as CTO, building an AI-driven quality platform for industrial leaders like BMW and Siemens. I'm passionate about solving hard problems with great people and building a culture of ownership and curiosity.

    We’ll tackle tough technical problems together, from backend to frontend, while fostering a culture of ownership and continuous learning.

    Alex (Engineering)

    I’ve worked 11 years in Software Engineering, ranging from computer graphics and data visualization to full-stack web development. Before joining avoltra, I was responsible for the fleet management and teleoperation platform for delivery robots at Cartken.

    We’ll pair on topics ranging from infrastructure and DevOps to solution architecture and UI/UX design.

    Franz (Product)

    With a background in Industrial Design (OTH Regensburg, TU Munich, Stanford) and Technology Management (CDTM), I’m passionate about building user-centric products that make complex systems accessible. At avoltra, I focus on shaping the product vision and translating real-world procurement challenges into clear workflows and intuitive UX.

    You'll work with me to ensure that we work on the right things and find the best possible solutions for our customers.

    Angelo (Revenue)

    With a background in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Supply Chain Management, I’m passionate about aligning tech with market realities. I’ve scaled startups like Luminovo as Head of Growth and love connecting customer needs with product strategy.

    You’ll work with me to deeply understand customer problems and turn business logic into solutions that drive real value for our users.

    Apply now
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