Founding Engineering Team Lead (HandsOn)

About This Opportunity

We are representing a well-funded cybersecurity startup in Berlin seeking a Founding Engineering Team Lead to join their core technical leadership. This is a rare opportunity to shape platform architecture, security foundations, and engineering culture from the ground up while remaining deeply hands-on with code.

Our client is building cutting-edge identity and access security technology in a high-growth domain. You'll work directly with executive leadership, own critical technical decisions, and help scale both the platform and the team.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a small, high-performing engineering team while coding 70% of the time in GoLang
• Design, build, and review production backend and platform code alongside the team
• Own delivery of the engineering roadmap, balancing speed, quality, and security
• Set architecture direction and enforce engineering standards across the stack
• Build security platform infrastructure from scratch, including service boundaries and deployment models
• Establish lightweight engineering processes that enable fast execution without bureaucracy
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance
• Remove blockers across backend, frontend, data, and DevOps workstreams
• Collaborate closely with CEO and CPTO on technical and execution decisions
• Support hiring, onboarding, and technical evaluation of engineers
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production incidents across infrastructure and application layers
• Build PoCs and validate infrastructure and security design decisions in an early-stage environment
• Support compliance readiness by enabling controls, logging, and evidence collection
• Continuously improve platform cost efficiency, reliability, and operational maturity

What We're Looking For

Required Skills and Experience:

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience
• 3+ years of experience leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on
• 3+ years of GoLang experience in production environments
• 3+ years experience with AWS in production settings
• Strong code quality standards and experience with architectural reviews
• Ability to context-switch between technical topics and people leadership
• Strong execution mindset and comfort operating under ambiguity
• Hands-on coding mentality with ability to build systems from scratch including security architecture
• Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes (EKS) and containerized workloads
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar)
• Experience with monitoring, logging, observability (Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus)
• Experience with coding copilots (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar tools)
• Experience supporting production SaaS platforms
• High ownership mentality, startup mindset, and ability to move quickly
• Experience in startup or scale-up environments
• Low ego, high commitment, and strong collaborative mindset
• Excellent English communication skills

Nice-to-Have:

• Previous experience as a founding or early-stage Engineering Manager
• Experience in cybersecurity, identity, or enterprise SaaS platforms
• Exposure to DevOps, SRE, or data engineering
• Experience scaling teams and systems simultaneously
• Experience with security architecture, identity security, or security engineering
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, SOC 2)
• Understanding of OAuth/OIDC, API tokens, IdP, scopes, SSO, SCIM, roles, RBAC/ABAC, service accounts
• Familiarity with cloud identity and security controls (IAM, CloudTrail, Azure Active Directory/Entra ID)
• Hands-on with SIEM platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or IBM QRadar
• Experience designing permission models, identity graphs, or access control frameworks
• Knowledge of tokenization, Zero Trust principles, least privilege, and continuous verification
• Experience with security related to AI/LLM systems, agent logic, or willingness to learn fast
• Familiarity with AI agent behavior, LLM security, or agent sandboxing
• Previous experience in cybersecurity or identity-focused startups
• German language skills

Benefits and What the Client Offers

• Founding team member equity (ESOPs) in a well-funded cybersecurity company
• Competitive market-aligned compensation with flexible early-stage arrangements
• Founding team member status with ability to shape the company from day one
• Fresh funding secured with immediate runway to build and execute
• High autonomy and freedom to design without corporate overhead
• Work directly with technical CEO and CPTO for fast iteration and clear direction
• Opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge identity security, SaaS access control, and AI agent governance
• Fast career path with opportunity to evolve into higher leadership as the team scales
• Berlin location in a top-tier tech environment with strong cybersecurity and AI ecosystems
• Direct impact where your architecture and code become the foundation of the platform
• High-quality equipment and modern tools from day one
• Regular team offsites to build connections and alignment

How We Work With You

Get A Job.ai is representing this confidential cybersecurity client. When you apply through our platform at getajob.ai, a recruiter from our talent team will screen your background and discuss the opportunity in detail. If there's a strong mutual fit, we will submit your profile to the client for consideration. Please do not attempt to contact the client directly, as all applications must come through Get A Job.ai to be considered.

Pay

Compensation details will be discussed during the screening process with our recruiting team and are competitive with the Berlin market for founding engineering leadership roles.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Get A Job.ai is committed to inclusive hiring practices and equal opportunity employment. We evaluate all candidates based on qualifications and merit.