Founding Engineering Team Lead (HandsOn)

Berlin • Cybersecurity & AI Startup • Recently Funded

A newly funded cybersecurity startup in Berlin is looking for aEngineering 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-onFounding 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.

They’re building a next-generation cyber risk platform that helps enterprises understand, measure, and reduce identity risk at scale. Their 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.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and grow a small, high-performing engineering team while remaininghands-on

• Design, build, and review production backend and platform code alongside the team

• Own delivery of theengineering roadmap, balancing speed, quality, and security

• Act as atechnical leader by setting architecture direction and enforcing engineering standards

• Contribute directly to critical features, integrations, and platform foundations

• Establish lightweightengineering processes that enable fast execution without bureaucracy

• Mentor engineers throughcode reviews, pairing, and technical guidance

• Contributehands-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 withCEO, CPTO, and product leadership on technical and execution decisions

• Supporthiring, onboarding, and technical evaluation of engineers

• Foster a culture ofownership, pragmatism, and low ego

• Build whole Security platform setupfrom 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

• Supportcompliance readiness by enabling controls, logging, and evidence collection for security frameworks

• Continuously improveplatform cost efficiency, reliability, and operational maturity

• This role reports directly toCEO & CPTO

Must have skills

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience

• 3+ years of experience leading engineering teamswhile remaining hands-on

• 3+ yearsof GoLangexperience

• 3+ yearsexperience withAWS in production environments

• Strongcode quality bar and experience with architectural reviews

• Ability to context-switch between technicaltopics and people leadership

• Strong execution mindset and comfort operating underambiguity

• Hands-on coding mentality;can build things from scratchincluding security architecture yourself

• Hands-on experience withDocker, Kubernetes (EKS) and containerized workloads

• Experience withCI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar)

• Experience withmonitoring, logging, observability (Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus)

• Experience withCoding CoPilots(Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, AWS CodeWhisperer, Codex, etc.)

• Knowledge of Experience supportingproduction SaaS platforms

• High ownership mentality, startup mindset, and ability tomove quickly

• Experience instartup or scale-up environments

• Low ego, high commitment, and atrue tech startup mentality

• ExcellentEnglish communication skills

Nice-to-have requirements

• Previous experience as a founding orearly-stage Engineering Manager

• Experience incybersecurity, identity, or enterprise SaaS platforms

• Exposure toDevOps, SRE, or data engineering

• Experiencescaling teams and systems simultaneously

• Experience with security architecture, identity security, orsecurity engineering

• Familiarity withcompliance frameworks (NIS2, DORA, ISO 27001, SOC 2)

• Understanding ofOAuth/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 asSplunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or IBM QRadar

• Experience designingpermission models, identity graphs, or access control frameworks

• Knowledge of tokenization,Zero Trust principles, least privilege, and continuous verification

• Experience with Security related toAI/LLM systems, agent logic, or willingness to learn fast

• Familiarity withAI agent behavior, LLM security, or agent sandboxing

• Previous experience incybersecurity, identity startups

• You are a fan ofrock or metal music

• ExcellentGerman 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.