Founding Engineer – Backend & Platform
Clera · Berlin
What this role requires
One requirement, read out of the advert rather than guessed from the job title:
Also mentioned, not required: DATEV, English (B2). Worth having, but their absence is not what gets a CV filtered out.
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Job description
About the Role
We're a seed-stage startup building Germany's most modern accounting and tax advisory platform — an AI-powered operating system for tax advisory firms. We acquire established tax firms and transform them into high-performing, technology-enabled businesses through proprietary software and centralised services.
As a Founding Engineer – Backend & Platform , you'll design and operate the core backend that powers our platform: enabling data flows, reliable workflows, and safe AI applications across dozens of firms. This is foundational, greenfield work — you'll define how data moves, how work gets done, and how we scale. Your code ships to real tax firms from day one.
Visa sponsorship is available for this role.
What You'll Do
Design, implement, and operate core backend services spanning accounting, payroll, reporting, and compliance domains.
Read the full description (22 more sections)Show less
Build robust data pipelines to ingest, normalise, and reconcile data from DATEV, banks, and document sources.
Design and operate workflow orchestration for long-running, stateful, and failure-prone processes.
Own correctness, observability, and performance of every system you ship.
Make pragmatic architectural decisions in a true greenfield environment — no legacy constraints to navigate.
Ship to production frequently; your work runs inside live advisory firms from the start.
Collaborate directly with the CTO on system design and core technical decisions.
What We're Looking For
Must-haves (dealbreakers):
Demonstrated track record of building and operating production backend systems (language-agnostic background welcome; the stack is TypeScript-heavy today).
3+ years of experience building backend systems.
Required skills:
Strong TypeScript skills.
Solid experience designing systems around data integrity, reliability, and workflows.
Strong observability, monitoring, and performance optimisation skills — metrics, tracing, and logging in production environments.
Hands-on experience integrating DATEV and/or other accounting software into a production platform.
Nice to have:
Experience building data pipelines to ingest, normalise, and reconcile data from DATEV, banks, and document sources.
Experience designing and operating workflow orchestration for long-running, stateful, failure-prone processes.
Who thrives here: Engineers who take full operational ownership, prefer pragmatic solutions over theoretical elegance, and are energised by messy, real-world infrastructure challenges at an early-stage company.
Location & Work Arrangement
This is a full-time, on-site role based in Berlin, Germany . Visa sponsorship is available.
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