Technical Lead AI Product (m/f/d)

Location
Cologne
Work model
Hybrid
Employment type
Full-time
Salary
up to €90,000

Do you want to help decide what an AI product builds and how it is delivered reliably?

We are looking for a Technical Lead AI Product (m/f/d) for a startup with ambitious scaling plans. Its AI-powered SaaS platform already supports more than 1,000 companies nationwide with documents, forms, communications and workflows.

You will establish the architecture for the ambitious scaling plans and continuously develop the AI products. You will also independently develop business and product ideas based on customer feedback, validate them in the market and pitch them together with the founder.

Your responsibilities

  • You assess market and customer signals, analyse competitors and derive prioritised product proposals.

  • You help decide what gets built, what customer value it creates and how it fits into the existing architecture.

  • You manage and further develop the AI-supported development environment.

  • You structure tasks, orchestrate AI tools and models, and review their results.

  • You make architecture, quality and cost decisions, taking speed and cost-effectiveness into account.

  • You ensure tests and the reliability of releases.

  • You develop solutions for enterprise requirements such as on-premise, private cloud, local models and compliance.

  • You assess new tools and models for AI coding and LLM applications, and integrate them as needed.

What you bring

What you should have:

  • A master's or diploma degree in computer science, mathematics, data science or a comparable subject

  • At least five years of professional experience in software development

  • At least two years of experience at a B2B SaaS company with more than 1m ARR

  • Experience with architecture and system design for cloud platforms

  • Practical experience building RAG solutions without AI

  • Practical experience implementing MCP without AI

  • Practical experience building CI/CD pipelines without AI

  • Practical experience developing APIs without AI

  • German language skills at C1 level

Experience with the following is a plus:

  • Enterprise on-premise projects in production

  • Security or compliance responsibility for a production system

  • Leadership experience

What makes this role interesting

You will have scope to shape the role at the intersection of AI product, software architecture and AI-supported development. Instead of working through a fixed backlog, you will help shape which product categories and features are developed next.

As the area grows, the role can develop towards CTO or technical product leadership. Enterprise readiness, architecture and AI orchestration are also expected to be expanded in the medium term.

How you work

You will work in a small team of currently four people, close to the founder and with short decision-making paths. Various AI tools already handle tasks such as building, monitoring and reporting. You will work directly with the founder.

Terms and conditions

  • Permanent full-time employment

  • Location in Cologne, four days per week on site and one day working from home

  • No travel is expected

Interested?

We look forward to a first confidential conversation. Apply directly through our website or arrange an informal call with our recruitment consultant.

Apply