Founding Engineering Team Lead (HandsOn)

Job description

<p><span style="color:#121317">At TechBiz Global, we are providing recruitment service to our TOP clients from our portfolio. We are currently seeking a </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">Founding Engineering Team Lead </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">to join one of our </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">clients</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">' team in Berlin. If you're looking for an exciting opportunity to grow in a innovative environment, this could be the perfect fit for you.<br></span></p><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Key Responsibilities:</span></strong></p><ul><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Lead and grow a small, high-performing engineering team while remaining hands-on</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Design, build, and review production backend and platform code alongside the team</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Own delivery of the engineering roadmap, balancing speed, quality, and security</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Act as a technical leader by setting architecture direction and enforcing engineering standards</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Contribute directly to critical features, integrations, and platform foundations</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Establish lightweight engineering processes that enable fast execution without bureaucracy</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Mentor engineers through code reviews, pairing, and technical guidance</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Contribute hands-on in design and build architecture, configure systems, code 70% of the time in GoLang.</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Remove blockers and unblock delivery across backend, frontend, data, and DevOps</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Collaborate closely with CEO, CPTO, and product leadership on technical and execution decisions</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Support hiring, onboarding, and technical evaluation of engineers</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Foster a culture of ownership, pragmatism, and low ego</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Build whole Security platform setup from scratch</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Partner closely with backend and AI engineers to design secure service boundaries and deployment models</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Troubleshoot and resolve complex production incidents across infrastructure, networking, and application layers</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Build PoCs and validate infrastructure and security design decisions in an early-stage environment</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Support compliance readiness by enabling controls, logging, and evidence collection for security frameworks</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Continuously improve platform cost efficiency, reliability, and operational maturity</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">This role reports directly to CEO &amp; CPTO</span></p></li></ul> <br> <p class="p1" style="text-align:start;"><strong><span style="color:#121317">Must have skills:</span></strong></p><ul><li><p class="p1"><strong><span style="color:#121317">10+ years</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> of professional software engineering experience</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><strong><span style="color:#121317">3+ years</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> of experience leading engineering teams </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">while remaining hands-on</span></strong></p></li><li><p class="p1"><strong><span style="color:#121317">3+ years </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">of</span><strong><span style="color:#121317"> GoLang </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">experience</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><strong><span style="color:#121317">3+ years </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">experience with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">AWS</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> in production environments</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Strong </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">code quality</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> bar and experience with architectural reviews</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Ability to context-switch between technical </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">topics and people leadership</span></strong></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Strong execution mindset and comfort operating under </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">ambiguity</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Hands-on coding mentality; </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">can build things from scratch </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">including security architecture yourself</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Hands-on experience with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">Docker, Kubernetes</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> (EKS) and containerized workloads</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">CI/CD pipelines</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> (GitHub Actions or similar)</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">monitoring, logging, observability</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> (Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus)</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Experience with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">Coding CoPilots </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">(Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, AWS CodeWhisperer, Codex, etc.)</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Knowledge of Experience supporting </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">production SaaS platforms</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">High ownership mentality, startup mindset, and ability to </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">move quickly</span></strong></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience in </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">startup or scale-up environments</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Low ego, high commitment, and a </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">true tech startup mentality</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Excellent </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">English</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> communication skills</span></p></li></ul><p class="p2" style="text-align:start;min-height: 1.7em;"></p><p class="p3" style="text-align:start;"><strong><span style="color:#121317">Nice-to-have requirements:</span></strong></p><ul><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Previous experience as a founding or </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">early-stage</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> Engineering Manager</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience in </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">cybersecurity</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">, identity, or enterprise SaaS platforms</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Exposure to </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">DevOps, SRE, or data engineering</span></strong></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">scaling teams</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> and systems simultaneously</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Experience with security architecture, identity security, or </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">security engineering</span></strong></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">Familiarity with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">compliance frameworks</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, SOC 2)</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Understanding of </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">OAuth/OIDC, API tokens, IdP, scopes, SSO, SCIM, roles, RBAC/ABAC, service accounts</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Familiarity with cloud identity and security controls (e.g. </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">IAM, CloudTrail, Azure Active Directory / Entra ID</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">)</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Hands-on with SIEM platforms such as </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or IBM QRadar</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Experience designing </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">permission models, identity graphs, or access control frameworks</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Knowledge of tokenization, </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">Zero Trust principles</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">, least privilege, and continuous verification</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Experience with Security related to </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">AI/LLM systems, agent logic, or willingness to learn fast</span></strong></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Familiarity with </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">AI agent behavior</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">, LLM security, or agent sandboxing</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Previous experience in </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">cybersecurity</span></strong><span style="color:#121317">, identity startups</span></p></li><li><p class="p1"><span style="color:#121317">You are a fan of </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">rock or metal</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> music</span></p></li><li><p><span style="color:#121317">Excellent </span><strong><span style="color:#121317">German</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> communication skills</span></p></li></ul><p style="text-align:start;min-height: 1.7em;"></p><p style="text-align:start;"><strong><span style="color:#121317">Benefits:</span></strong></p><ul><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Founding Team Member Equity</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — ESOPs in a well funded cybersecurity company.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Competitive Compensation</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — salary aligned with market, flexible early-stage arrangements possible.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Founding Team Member Status</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — shape the company from day one and own critical security technical decisions.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Fresh Funding Secured</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — immediate runway to build, hire, and execute fast.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Security Contribution</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — contribute to security tech architecture across identity, AI agents, and enforcement.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">High Autonomy</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — freedom to design and build without corporate overhead.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Work with a Technical CEO and CPTO</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — fast iteration, strong alignment, clear direction.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Cutting-Edge Domain</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — identity security, SaaS-to-SaaS access, AI agent governance.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Massive Learning Curve</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — quickly gain depth in cybersecurity, identity, and AI systems.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Fast Career Path</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — opportunity evolve into higher leadership as we scale the engineering team</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Berlin Location</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — top-tier tech environment with strong cybersecurity and AI ecosystems.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Direct Impact</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> — your architecture and code become the foundation of the entire platform.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Best Equipment and Tools</span></strong><span style="color:#121317"> - High quality equipment and modern tools to help you do your best work from day one.</span></p></li><li><p><strong><span style="color:#121317">Team Offsites - </span></strong><span style="color:#121317">Regular team offsites designed to build strong connections, alignment, and shared momentum.</span></p></li></ul><p>Find <a href="https://www.arbeitnow.com">Jobs in Germany</a> on Arbeitnow</a>

Required skills

Job locations

Compensation

Salary for this role is not disclosed by the employer. We don’t have enough benchmark data from similar roles to produce a reliable estimate. The actual compensation will be discussed during the interview process.