Lead Backend Engineer

About Optiml

Optiml is revolutionizing real estate with our Real Estate Decision Intelligence (REDI) software—a new category of AI-powered technology that helps decarbonize buildings while optimizing asset & portfolio performance.

Since our launch in April 2024, we have been scaling across Europe and the US, receiving significant industry recognition and winning three major PropTech awards, including:

🏆 2024 ULI Europe PropTech of the Year

🏆 2024 ZIA PropTech of the Year

We are backed by $6M in pre-seed funding from top-tier US and EU funds, including Innovation Endeavors (the fund of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt), Planet A, BitStone, and Kompas.

• Lead the engineering development of a part of the core product.


• Ramp up quickly on domain knowledge in the real estate / buildings industry required to understand the problem space.


• Come up with innovative solutions to solve our customers' problems.


• Own the whole development lifecycle: prototype to specs to production.


• Collaborate with peers on architecture, design and code reviews.


• Simplify complexity, guide the team toward clear, pragmatic solutions.


• Mentor engineers, raise standards and help the team move faster with confidence.


• Build systems that can scale with Optiml’s growth from startup to scale-up.

Who we are looking for

• Embrace Challenges: You prioritize speed and flexibility, adept at making swift compromises to maintain momentum.


• Push The Limits: You are able to quickly and efficiently execute tasks, demonstrating strong initiative and self-drive.


• Inspire Others: You bring kindness and humor to the team, enhancing both morale and collaboration.


• Champion The Customer: You do what is right for the customer and can deliver outcomes.

Must have

• MSc in Computer science, Math or equivalent.


• 7+ years of experience designing, building and maintaining data-intensive applications.


• Expertise in system architecture, algorithms, and performance optimization.


• Proven record of shipping and scaling back-end systems (Python, C++) in fast-moving environments.


• Experience bridging production grade engineering and research (Optimization, ML).


• Ability to make sound trade-offs and drive outcomes that balance speed and quality.


• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills in English.


• Desire to work from our Zurich office.

Nice to have:

• Experience from startup to scale up


• Knowledge of financial modeling or physics-based simulations

• Learning and development budget of CHF 1k (conferences, certificates, etc.).


• Shit happens: 100% accident non-occupational accident insurance (UVG) covered.


• Flexible parental leave and hybrid work setup