AI Engineer

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Mercura is building AI software for the backbone of our economy.

We are one of the fastest growing companies from YC’s W25 batch and raised a heavily oversubscribed round at one of the highest valuations in our cohort. After surpassing $1M in ARR in under a year, 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.

What you will be working on

• 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

What we are looking for

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, Kubernetes), 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

Company perks

• 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 €750/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 €90,000-€200,000 annually . Actual offers and compensation are based on specific job duties, experience, performance, total rewards structure, and other considerations.

About the interview

Casual intro meeting with one of the founders to get to know each other and introduce Mercura.

Step 2: Technical interview

At Mercura, we value our applicants' time. That's why we compensate you with €50 if we ask you to complete a take‑home challenge.

The technical interview consists of two parts:

• A take‑home exercise, including a short presentation and a live‑coding session.

For the take‑home exercise, we’d provide you with a task. You’ll have 2–3 hours to complete it, focusing on data and 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. The presentation will include a brief algorithmic live‑coding challenge, similar to a competitive programming task.

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.