First Engineering Hire

Job Description

👋 About us

Avery is an AI-powered hiring intelligence platform redefining hiring with data-driven decisions. We build category-defining products using advanced RAG systems, graph-based data analysis, and emerging ML methodologies. Based in Rotterdam and backed by Builders studio, we eliminate costly mis-hires and accelerate time-to-fill via real-time market insights, intelligent job design, and nuanced candidate matching.

As we enter a pivotal product-market fit phase with growing traction, we seek our Founding Engineer – an AI-focused innovator – to help pioneer the next generation of hiring technology.

Why this role exists

As our Founding Engineer, you'll be a cornerstone of Avery's technical and AI innovation, partnering deeply with our CTO. Your mission: architect and implement our AI-driven core, ensuring this intelligence is delivered through a polished, intuitive, high-impact user experience. This is about pioneering new AI approaches to understand talent, shaping a holistic system that learns, evolves, and delights users. This role is for a versatile, hands-on builder who sees AI as the engine for transformative products, paired with exceptional design and engineering craftsmanship, and is driven to solve complex problems with elegant, powerful technology, delivered beautifully.

What You’ll Pioneer & Build

🧠 AI innovation & development

• Drive research, design, and implementation of novel AI solutions (advanced RAG, multi-modal AI, sophisticated LLM features) at Avery's core.
• Champion cutting-edge tech (e.g., Neo4j, knowledge graphs) for complex data modeling and deeper talent insights.
• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of AI models: from PoC to production, benchmarking, and continuous optimization.
• Stay at AI research forefront (NLP, ML, Deep Learning, Graph ML), translating emerging concepts into competitive advantages.
• Define and execute the AI roadmap with the CTO, aligning tech possibilities with strategic goals.
  
  

🚀 Engineer a world-class, AI-powered platform

• Architect and build high-quality, full-stack components (backend to pixel-perfect UI) delivering AI innovations through intuitive, engaging user experiences; champion user-centric design.
• Drive key architectural decisions for a scalable, maintainable, low-debt platform, ensuring a fantastic user journey, robust reliability, and clean, well-tested code.
• Enhance our AI-augmented development ecosystem (MLOps, data pipelines, CI/CD for AI, tooling) to boost product-wide development velocity.
• Provide critical engineering insights into product strategy, UX, and customer use cases, ensuring our tech elegantly solves real-world hiring challenges.
  
  

Job requirements

What we’re looking for

• Core passion & mindset: Deep AI passion with a commitment to exceptional, user-centric products; a product-minded engineer advocating for the best UX.
• Full-stack AI expertise: 5+ years of versatile software engineering (front-end, back-end, infra) focused on deploying and optimizing production-grade ML/AI systems.
• Technical proficiency: Core stack (React, TypeScript, Next.js, Node.js, Express) expertise, or rapid mastery of new tech.
• Advanced AI skills: Hands-on LLM, RAG, vector database experience (fine-tuning, prompt engineering, embeddings); solid grasp of ML principles.
• Graph & data modeling: Strong interest/experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j) & graph ML for complex data insights.
• Cloud & scalability: Proven experience building scalable, cloud-native apps & AI pipelines (Vercel, AWS).
• Search & retrieval systems: Experience with ElasticSearch for powering intelligent search capabilities and integrating it into AI-driven applications.
  
  

Why Avery?

• Be part of building a transformative product from the ground up.
• Work directly with experienced founders in a high-growth startup environment.
• Gain deep exposure to product development, AI integration, and startup dynamics.
• Influence our tech stack, workflows, and engineering culture.
• Opportunity to grow into a Lead Engineer or early leadership role as we scale.
  
  

This role is for Avery, a Builders portfolio company. Hiring is managed by the Avery team.