Founding Engineering Team Lead (HandsOn)

A newly funded cybersecurity startup in Berlin is looking for a Engineering Team Lead to join as a founding team member and help design the core security identity and enforcement foundations of a next-generation AI-powered risk management platform.

We are an early-stage startup founded by experienced cybersecurity leaders with backgrounds in Israeli intelligence units.
We are looking for a hands-on Founding Engineering Team Lead for a hybrid role based in central Berlin. If you are passionate about cybersecurity and AI thrive in fast-paced startup environments and enjoy building complex platforms from the ground up this is an opportunity to make a real impact.

Were building a next-generation cyber risk platform that helps enterprises understand measure and reduce identity risk at scale. Our goal is to turn complex identity and security data into clear actionable risk insights that CISOs and CTOs can trust. You will work from scratch on core platform components from day one shaping how modern enterprises manage and reason about risk using cloud-native systems AI-driven analysis and automated enforcement through AI agents.

Tasks

• Lead and grow a small high-performing engineering team while remaining hands-on
• Design build and review production backend and platform code alongside the team
• Own delivery of the engineering roadmap balancing speed quality and security
• Act as a technical leader by setting architecture direction and enforcing engineering standards
• Contribute directly to critical features integrations and platform foundations
• Establish lightweight engineering processes that enable fast execution without bureaucracy
• Mentor engineers through code reviews pairing and technical guidance
• Contribute hands-on in design and build architecture configure systems code 70% of the time in GoLang.
• Remove blockers and unblock delivery across backend frontend data and DevOps
• Collaborate closely with CEO CPTO and product leadership on technical and execution decisions
• Support hiring onboarding and technical evaluation of engineers
• Foster a culture of ownership pragmatism and low ego
• Build whole Security platform setup from scratch
• Partner closely with backend and AI engineers to design secure service boundaries and deployment models
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production incidents across infrastructure networking 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 for security frameworks
• Continuously improve platform cost efficiency reliability and operational maturity
• This role reports directly to CEO & CPTO

Requirements

• 10 years of professional software engineering experience
• 2 years of experience leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on
• 2 years of GoLang experience
• 3 years experience with AWS in production environments
• Strong code quality bar 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; can build things from scratch including security architecture yourself
• 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 AWS CodeWhisperer Codex etc.)
• Knowledge of 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 a true tech startup mentality
• Excellent English communication skills

Nice-to-have requirements:

• 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 (e.g. 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 identity startups
• You are a fan of rock or metal music
• Excellent German communication skills

Benefits

• Founding Team Member Equity ESOPs in a well funded cybersecurity company.
• Competitive Compensation salary aligned with market flexible early-stage arrangements possible.
• Founding Team Member Status shape the company from day one and own critical security technical decisions.
• Fresh Funding Secured immediate runway to build hire and execute fast.
• Security Contribution contribute to security tech architecture across identity AI agents and enforcement.
• High Autonomy freedom to design and build without corporate overhead.
• Work with a Technical CEO and CPTO fast iteration strong alignment clear direction.
• Cutting-Edge Domain identity security SaaS-to-SaaS access AI agent governance.
• Massive Learning Curve quickly gain depth in cybersecurity identity and AI systems.
• Fast Career Path opportunity evolve into higher leadership as we scale the engineering team
• Berlin Location top-tier tech environment with strong cybersecurity and AI ecosystems.
• Direct Impact your architecture and code become the foundation of the entire platform.
• Best Equipment and Tools - High quality equipment and modern tools to help you do your best work from day one.
• Team Offsites - Regular team offsites designed to build strong connections alignment and shared momentum.

Employment Type : Employee
Experience: years
Vacancy: 1