Founding Deployment Lead

Dryft; München; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Dryft is seeking a Founding Deployment Lead to drive end-to-end deployments across customers' plants, collaborating with C-levels, operators and IT to unlock value through scalable AI-enabled solutions.

You'll shape the product with users, convert messy workflows into features, and build repeatable deployment playbooks while growing into leadership roles such as CPO or COO. Munich onsite with 30–50% travel.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in top-tier roles (consulting, ex-founder, or early employee at high-growth startup).
• Comfort with data, APIs and integrations; AI experimentation.
• Experience with manufacturing, procurement, or supply chain.
• High agency, drive and ability to operate in ambiguity.
• Ability to translate ERP rants into actionable product features.
• Track record of winning in challenging environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead deployments end-to-end – from executive workshop to production use across plants.
• Shape the product – turn user workflows into features and align with engineering roadmaps.
• Build for scale – create repeatable playbooks and lead the deployment team, growing into senior roles.

Skills

Fast-paced experience

AI-native

Industrial domain

Founder DNA

Product-minded

Strategic thinking

Executive communication

Team leadership

Willingness to relocate

Job description

DRYFT

Ideas only change the world when you build them at scale. That’s what Dryft is here for.

Dryft builds models that automate complex human decisions in manufacturing operations. We capture the knowledge of experienced operators across supply chain, production planning, engineering and more, simulate the consequences of their decisions, and use this understanding to help run their business. Our customers include some of the largest robotics, machine and component manufacturers in the world.

We’re a small, talent-dense team with modest roots and a love for the physical world: cars, machines, planes. Our team includes graduates from Stanford, Berkeley, CDTM and TUM , winners of Stanford TreeHacks , recipients of Fulbright & Haniel scholarships , and people who have built everything from robots and race cars to software with millions of downloads .

What matters more to us than credentials is how people work: humility, hard work, speed, kindness, deep customer care, and a willingness to take on problems others avoid. Working at Dryft is hard. You get unusual ownership early on, with real responsibility. But that’s also what makes it one of the biggest learning experiences of your life.

We’re backed by founders and operators behind some of the most legendary tech companies of our time, Tier-1 U.S. venture firms, and board members of global industrial companies.

ERPs ran the physical world for half a century. Dryft is building the intelligence layer that will power the next.

THE ROLE

This is the most entrepreneurial and founder-like role we have at Dryft. As a Founding Deployment Lead , you'll face questions you've never heard before, processes you've never seen, and customers who expected answers yesterday. One day you're with C-level executives, the next with shop-floor users trying AI for the first time, and in between you're building prototypes. Your goal is to find the solution that creates the most value, get it running, and make Dryft indispensable.

• Lead deployments end-to-end – carry our customers from the first executive workshop to production use across their plants, with C-level execs, operators and IT
• Shape the product – work daily with users, turn messy workflows into features, and collaborate closely with engineering to push the roadmap forward
• Build for scale – turn deployments into repeatable playbooks and product features, build and lead the deployment team, and grow into roles like CPO or COO

This isn't a role where you sit back and follow a process. You'll be in the trenches, under pressure, solving problems most people wouldn't touch. You sit between our customers, product and engineering, and what you bring back shapes where Dryft goes next.

YOU

• - Fast-paced experience – 6+ years in a top-tier role (e.g., consulting), as an ex-founder, or as an early employee in a high-growth startup
• - Technically fluent & AI-native – you're comfortable with data, APIs and integrations, and you enjoy experimenting with new AI tools (experience with Claude Code is a plus)
• - Industrial at heart – you've worked with manufacturing, procurement, supply chain or another industrial domain, and you find these companies fascinating
• - Founder DNA – you have high agency, drive and a serious work ethic; you thrive in ambiguity and anticipate next priorities instead of waiting for direction
• - Product-minded – you listen to rants about ERP, nod wisely, and somehow turn them into product features that feel like magic
• - Competitive by nature – you have a track record of winning at something hard, and you're not done winning
• - Confident communicator – you can calm an impatient exec, win over a skeptical IT leader, and still crack a joke in the middle of it
• - Down-to-earth & relatable – you bond with shop-floor operators as easily as with boardroom execs, and you'll put on the safety shoes without being asked
• - Relocation – you're ready to work onsite in Munich, with 30 to 50% travel