Product Engineer

YOUR ROLE As a Product Engineer, you will help build kolum's AI-first trade compliance software end to end, from the interfaces customers touch to the systems behind them, using AI as your default leverage at every step. This role is for someone who thinks about product, not just code. You will move fluidly between design, frontend and backend, asking what should be built and why before asking how. You will prototype in hours rather than days, ship features customers actually use, and own outcomes rather than tickets. Your mission is to turn complex compliance workflows and regulatory logic into clear, intuitive, trustworthy product experiences. Most of your time goes on shipping: designing flows and prototypes, building interfaces, wiring up APIs, and iterating on real customer feedback. You will work closely with our AI engineers and product team so that complex trade compliance requirements reach users in a way that is usable, transparent and enterprise-ready. Part of the job is making it easier for the next person. We are a small team shipping at the speed agents allow, and that only holds if someone cares about the patterns, the guardrails and the checks that keep quality up while the pace stays high. You will inherit some of those, improve them, and add the ones we are missing. If you are energised by the leverage modern AI gives a single engineer, and you want to point that leverage at a real product that matters to real customers, this role is for you. YOUR TASKS & RESPONSIBILITIES As a Product Engineer, you will: Take features from rough idea to production: shaping the problem, sketching the UX, building the interface, wiring up the backend, and iterating after launch.Build and evolve the frontend of kolum's AI-first trade compliance engine, primarily in TypeScript with Next.js.Design and implement AI-first user experiences: workflows, dashboards, explanations, analytics, and feedback loops for AI-driven decisions.Contribute to backend services (NestJS) and AI integrations, for example via Amazon Bedrock and Claude, wherever the product needs it. No rigid lane boundaries.Work with coding agents the way the rest of us do: write the spec, kick the agent off, read what comes back, and iterate. Claude Code, Cursor, Lovable, and whatever replaces them next quarter.Leave the codebase better set up than you found it. The conventions, guardrails and automated checks that let a small team move fast with agents without shipping mistakes.Make product calls together with the product team. Propose what to build, don't just execute specs.Keep raising the bar on usability, performance, accessibility and reliability in an enterprise context. WHAT YOU NEED TO SUCCEED You will do well in this role if you: Have strong skills in TypeScript, React and Next.js, and have built modern web applications that real people used.Can point at something you shipped that had a visible effect, and defend the decisions behind it. A product bet that paid off, a workflow you deleted, a number that moved, a tool or convention other engineers picked up.Are comfortable in backend code and APIs. We expect you to build and maintain the backend your frontend needs and to handle straightforward database work. Infrastructure is not your job, and experience with AI integrations is welcome rather than required.Work fluently with coding agents, steer what they produce and iterate so output improves over time.Think like a product person. You care about the problem, the user and the outcome, not only about clean code.Have real design sensibility and care about UX, especially when surfacing complex or technical behaviour to people who are not experts in it.Enjoy working closely with design, product and customer-facing roles, and are happy to wear all of those hats when needed.Are at home in an early-stage company: fast iteration, changing requirements, limited structure.Bring curiosity, pragmatism, and a strong sense of ownership for what you ship. ABOUT KOLUM Global trade is going through its biggest transformation in decades. New tariffs, sanctions, export controls and environmental regulations arrive at record speed, turning trade compliance from a back-office task into a CEO-level priority. Most organisations still handle it with fragmented software, consultants, brokers and manual processes that do not scale. At kolum we are building the AI-native trade compliance engine that automates and orchestrates trade compliance end to end. Our technology handles customs filings, tariffs, regulatory duties, reporting and audits in one integrated system, replacing costly legacy workflows and cutting manual errors at scale. We started with the most urgent regulatory problems, CBAM and EUDR, and earned the trust of dozens of enterprise customers across Europe. From that base we are expanding into a holistic platform for global trade compliance, helping organisations cut costs, stay audit-proof, and turn compliance from a burden into an advantage. Our mission is to become the category-defining solution for trade compliance worldwide, so organisations can operate confidently in an increasingly complex global trade environment. HOW WE TAKE CARE OF YOU 🧑 🚀 Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Global trade is at a crossroads and we have the chance to build the AI-first backbone for one of the largest industries in the world. 💸 Fair pay, real ownership. The range for this role is €70k-95k, plus a meaningful equity package. This role carries real responsibility and we want the upside to reflect that. 🎯 Work that actually matters. You will own one of the most critical parts of the company. Your decisions won't disappear into slide decks. They will ship, break, improve, and shape kolum's future. ⏰ Flexibility, but no pretending. We don't micromanage calendars. That said, this is an early-stage company building something hard. You decide when and how you get things done, and you are responsible for it. 💻 Tools over perks. You get the hardware, software and setup you need to do great work, including a paid subscription to the coding agent of your choice. Tell us what you need and we will take care of it. 🌍 Remote-first, human by default. We work remote-first with a base in Berlin. If meeting in person helps us move faster or think better, we do it. If not, we don't force it. 🚀 A long-term build. This is not a role for someone looking for an easy ride or a polished organisation. It is a role for someone who wants to build something meaningful, take responsibility, and grow with the company. ABOUT THE PROCESS We keep the process focused, transparent and respectful of everyone's time. You will always know where you stand and what comes next. Including the parts that cost you an evening, which we have listed below rather than sprung on you later. Intro call, 30 minutes, with Marius (Co-CEO). Getting to know each other, your motivation, and what you are looking for. As much for you to work out whether kolum is right as the other way around.Deep dive, 45 minutes, with our Head of Engineering. Your real work: the hardest calls you have made, how you drive agents, how you think about product and UX, and where your designs turned out to be fragile. Expect to be pushed on your answers.A take-home, about two hours of your own time, plus a 45-minute walkthrough. You get a small codebase and a real problem from our product. We do not score how far you got. We talk through the decisions you made, ask you to change something live, and push back on a couple of your choices.A reference call, if it helps, and then the offer call, where we walk you through compensation, equity and next steps in detail. HOW TO APPLY Send your CV or LinkedIn profile, a short note, and one more thing: take a look at our product and tell us one thing you would change, and why. It can be small. We care that you looked. Send it to johanna.feldmann@kolum.earth. If the role sounds interesting but you are unsure about every detail, apply anyway. We would rather have the conversation than wait for a perfect match. We are looking forward to hearing from you.