Summary
✨ AI‑Generated
Become the first engineer at an early-stage technology startup and build the core technical foundation alongside the founders. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role for someone who wants to shape architecture, product direction, engineering pace, and early execution rather than simply contribute to an established codebase.
Highlights
Engineer #1 opportunity with exceptional ownership, direct collaboration with founders, responsibility for building the technical foundation from scratch, and substantial influence over product direction, pace, and engineering decisions.
Description
Founding Engineer at nulla
nulla is building the delegation layer for the agentic economy, anchored in EU digital identity.
AI agents are already acting in the economy: writing to customers, moving data, triggering payments.
Nobody can prove whose legally verified identity it carries, on whose behalf it acts, and within what mandate.
Meanwhile, the EU is rolling out digital identity for every citizen and every company, and the layer connecting agents to it doesn't exist yet.
Windows like this open once.
We're going in early to set the standard, and our plan is a speedrun, not a marathon.
This is not an early employee role where you slot into an existing codebase and pick up tickets.
You're engineer #1: you build the core with the founders.
This is for someone who wants to build a startup, not just work at one.
Someone who picks the pace, the ownership and the grind on purpose.
We're building nulla the agentic way: tiny team, agents doing the volume, and the market in the room from day one.
Customers and partners see what we build while we build it, and we listen to them.
What you'll do:
Ship production code daily, across the whole productBuild in front of the market: show working software to real enterprises, clients and partners, take the feedback, ship the change the same weekTurn research papers into production softwareBuild systems where AI agents are first-class users, not an afterthoughtWork directly with the founders, with a feedback loop measured in hours, not sprints
Who you are:
AI-native for real: agentic coding tools are how you work (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, whatever ships), you run agents in parallel and review their output like a lead reviews a teamYou know MCP from building and wiring servers, not from reading threadsOutput accountability: agents produce the volume, you decide if it's rightProduct sense: you think about what the user gets, not just whether the code runsStrong across the stack: backend, APIs, MCP, data, and enough frontend to ship the whole thing yourselfCurious and experimental: you play with new tools and ideas before anyone asks you toComfortable in chaos: the roadmap changes, information is incomplete, you ship anywayHigh agency: you see it, you fix it, nobody asked
Bonus points:
Identity protocols: OAuth/OIDC, JWT, applied cryptographyInfosec backgroundYou've already tried building something of your own: a startup, a side project, anything with your name on it
eIDAS and the EUDI Wallet world you'll learn with us.
How this works
This is not a classic job, and we're not going to dress it up as one.
Right now nulla runs on equity: until our round closes, you work for stock options with vesting, not a salary.
The day the round closes, salary starts.
We're asking you to carry a few months of risk with us in exchange for a real stake in what we build.
Some of what you build will get thrown away, that's how we find what works.
If that trade makes sense to you, you're the person described above.
If it doesn't, fair enough, this isn't for everyone.