Mercura is building AI software for the backbone of our economy.
Backed by Y Combinator, we raised a heavily oversubscribed round at one of the highest valuations in our cohort. As one of Europe's fastest growing startups, we surpassed $2M in ARR in in our first year. Now, we are looking for team members ready to go all-in to help us reach our next milestone: $10M ARR by the end of 2026.
One of our co-founders, Lukas, grew up in a trades family that has been active in the construction industry for over 115 years. Having worked on the construction site himself, he learned first-hand how slow and manual quoting still is in the industry.
In an era where AI becomes ubiquitous, we set out on a deeply personal mission: bring AI to the backbone of our economy - to the companies that keep our world running. To amplify human expertise and free people to do what only humans can do.
As an AI Engineer, you will play a key role in building AI systems end-to-end. This is a fast-paced, hands-on role for engineers with high agency, strong technical depth and founder mindset. You’ll apply the latest technologies in NLP, LLMs, and AI agents - far beyond prompt engineering - while working alongside a team of the most stellar engineers.
If you’re a passionate builder who excels at the intersection of LLMs, NLP, AI, data engineering, and full-stack development, this is your opportunity to shape how users interact with AI.
Work with embeddings and fine-tune LLMs for classification and reranking
Optimize algorithms for product search
Apply RLHF & DPO to align LLMs with human feedback
Build data & ML pipelines to process large-scale unstructured data efficiently
Build, deploy and optimize AI agents end-to-end
Own the architecture and design of AI systems
Collaborate with other stellar engineers across the full stack
We are looking for stellar engineers with a strong background in LLMs, AI & ML - and the potential to grow and lead teams in the future.
Technical skillset:
Strong experience with NLP, LLMs, Embeddings, ML, and AI agents that goes far beyond prompt engineering (e.g., LoRA, tool calling / structured outputs, evals, retrievers / rerankers, RLHF/DPO)
Proven track record of architecting and building complex, production-grade AI systems
Demonstrated experience in scaling data & ML pipelines from a few users to thousands of users
Experience with full-stack software engineering (React, Typescript, Python) is a plus
Cloud & DevOps: Experience with containerization (Docker), cloud infrastructure (Azure/AWS/GCP), and infrastructure as code (Terraform) is a plus
Commitment & mindset:
High agency & ownership: You develop new ideas and drive them in execution under minimal guidance
Mission-driven: Your job is part of how you define yourself. You treat your work as a top priority, and you’re fully committed to achieving ambitious goals amid uncertainty
Product mindset: You demonstrate product thinking on a deep level and solve problems end-to-end
You’re excited to iterate quickly and build software in a fast-paced startup environment
You want to work in-person in Munich with a higher intensity than in a 9-5 job
Leadership & communication:
You naturally take responsibility and enjoy leading teams
You’re one of the strongest engineers in the team and make everyone else better
Everyone can come to you for advice on how to fix their hardest problems
Clients respect your presence & technical expertise
Free team dinner (up to 4x/week)
UrbanSportsClub membership - join our team workouts 3x/week
Easy relocation to Munich — our office is located in the Werk1 Startup Incubator, where you can rent a 1-bedroom apartment right next to the office for just €800/month
Real shares in our company with the most favorable tax treatment - no VSOP/ESOP
Access to any AI or productivity tools you need
The target total compensation (cash+bonus+equity) for this position is €85,000-€180,000 annually. Actual offers and compensation are based on specific job duties, experience, performance, total rewards structure, and other considerations.
You will work with
Sean (Co-Founder & CTO; Silver Medallist at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO))
Ben (prev. AI Engineer at Aleph Alpha)
Mark (prev. SWE at Capital One, Cambridge Graduate)
Your mentors will be
Rohan Ramanath (General Manager AI Product at Nubank, prev. co-founder Hyperplane)
Daniel Ribeiro Silva (Senior Director of ML at Nubank, prev. co-founder Hyperplane)
Step 1: Intro call
Casual intro meeting with one of the founders to get to know each other and introduce Mercura
Step 2: Technical interview
The technical interview consists of two parts:
A take-home exercise, including a short presentation.
A system design interview.
For the take-home exercise, we’d provide you with a task. You’ll have 2–3 hours to complete it, focusing on AI engineering (e.g., NLP, embeddings, LLMs). The challenge will be based on a practical problem we’ve encountered in our day-to-day work, so it should give you a realistic sense of what the role involves.
Later, you’ll present your results to us.
Step 3: Personal Fit
Meet another co-founder to get a feel for our culture and working style.
Step 4: On-Site
Work alongside the entire team for a day on-site from our Munich office to fully immerse yourself in our culture and collaboration style. This on-site will be paid.
Step 5: Offer & Reference Checks
If we see a great fit, you will get an offer, including a competitive compensation package with equity participation. At the same time, we’ll ask you to provide 2–3 references so we can gather additional insights into your strengths and working style.
Join an ambitious team that feels like family: Your future colleagues are experienced op
Mercura