Software Team Lead / Engineering Manager (Hands on)

Remote first - Bi-monthly meet-ups in Munich

SaaS AI

A fast-growing European SaaS company is looking for a Software TL / Engineering Manager who codes first and manages second. You'll be joining a high-performing team of 5 engineers building an AI-powered compliance platform that's disrupting a massive, broken market across Europe.

You will work in partnership with the CTO, taking over the EM responsibilities - not as an executive, but as the strongest IC on the team who also happens to lead it.

First 90 days:

Month 1: ship a meaningful feature (70–80% coding).

Month 2: own engineering hiring.

Month 3: lead performance conversations and 1:1s.

What makes this role genuinely exciting

Direct line to the CTO — you'll shape engineering culture, hiring, and technical standards from near-scratch
Engineers average under 2 hours of meetings per week. Focus is protected, not aspirational
No standups, no sprints, no scrum. Small temporary teams form around problems, ship, and dissolve
AI is already embedded in the engineering workflow — Cursor, Claude Code, Figma-to-code pipelines, automated architecture checks. Not for show
You'll own system design on the company's biggest projects end-to-end, including a new agentic AI product (CISO AI) with real traction
The business works: Series A, near cash-positive, strong customer growth. This isn't a moonshot
Annual team retreats — Costa Brava, Austrian Alps, Portugal, Italy

You're the right person if

8+ years backend engineering, principal level or equivalent — you earned management, you didn't escape into it
1–3 years EM experience: 1:1s, performance conversations, hiring, ideally at a similar stage startup
Hands-on with AI-assisted dev tools (Cursor, Claude Code) in real production work, with opinions on what actually moves the needle
Strong Backend/ OOP background; comfortable across backend and infra
You think people-first, not process-first — you reach for the right engineer, not the right runbook
Based in Germany, ability to come to Munich bi-monthly (company pays)

Probably not for you if

You haven't been in a codebase seriously in the last couple of years
You default to process and templates when things break
You believe growing from 5 to 10 engineers inevitably means sprints, ceremonies, and coordination overhead

Offer

Competitive salary benchmarked to European market rates + generous equity
Full remote setup support + co-working access

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