Founding Software Engineer

Hera (YC S25); Berlin; In loco; EUR 120.000 - 180.000; Tempo pieno

Vantaggi offerti da questo lavoro

Equity stake

Above-market salary

Office in Berlin Mitte

Meals provided (lunch/dinner)

Descrizione del lavoro

Hera is building the world’s first AI motion designer, enabling creators to produce professional animations in seconds. As a founding software engineer, you’ll shape the technical foundation of a company aiming to reach millions of users and empower 5% of the world’s population to create video content.

You’ll partner with the founders to deliver user-centric solutions from concept to production, own full-stack features, and build robust, scalable software, including LLM-driven workflows and a

Competenze

• Experience delivering user-centric product solutions from concept to production.
• Strong ownership and initiative in ambiguous environments.
• Proven ability to design scalable software architectures.

Mansioni

• Partner with the founders to deliver user-centric product solutions from concept to production
• Own end-to-end development of full-stack features with scalable architecture design
• Build and optimize agentic LLM systems incorporating tool-calling, multi-step reasoning, and MCP protocols
• Optimize LLM inference performance, cost efficiency, and latency across multiple model architectures
• Develop a high-performance motion graphics engine
• Drive architectural decisions that support scalable growth to millions of users

Conoscenze

Ownership

Ambition

Problem solving

Collaboration

Strumenti

TypeScript

React.js

Next.js

PostgreSQL

GCP/AWS

Descrizione del lavoro

Founding Software Engineer at Hera (YC S25)

We're building the world's first AI motion designer that creates professional animations in seconds.

About Hera

Video is the most effective medium, but video creators waste countless hours animating seconds of content. Motion design tools like After Effects require mastering complex user interfaces, turning creative work into button-clicking hell. We're starting with motion design because it's the most painful and expensive part of video creation. Hera is the first AI motion designer that creates professional animations through conversation. Unlike video-gen tools, Hera generates code-based animations where every parameter can be fine-tuned through prompts or on-canvas editing, giving users the control of After Effects with the simplicity of Lovable. In our first two weeks after launch, users created over 200,000 animations.

About The Role

This is our first hire. You won't just be an engineer, you'll be a founding member shaping the technical foundation of a company that will enable 5% of the world's population to create video content. Building creative software is uniquely challenging: there's no fixed process users follow. Everyone wants to create something new, express their ideas differently. This means endless edge cases and the need for exceptionally robust software.

You Will

• Partner with the founders to deliver user-centric product solutions from concept to production
• Own end-to-end development of full-stack features with scalable architecture design
• Build and optimize agentic LLM systems incorporating tool-calling, multi-step reasoning, and MCP protocols
• Optimize LLM inference performance, cost efficiency, and latency across multiple model architectures
• Develop a high-performance motion graphics engine
• Drive architectural decisions that support scalable growth to millions of users

Tech Stack

Our technology choices evolve with our needs. Current core technologies include TypeScript, React.js, Next.js, PostgreSQL, GCP/AWS, and our proprietary motion graphics engine. We prioritize learning velocity, end-to-end delivery, and adopt new languages or frameworks when they best serve our users and product goals.

What Makes You a Great Fit

• You're hungry. Not just ambitious, but obsessed with building something massive
• You're entrepreneurial. You've built things before and demand ownership
• You thrive in ambiguity. No roadmaps, no PMs, just problems to solve
• You have a growth mindset. We're small today, but building something huge. To grow the company, each of us needs to grow personally
• You work like an athlete. High performance, consistent improvement, whatever it takes to win
• You want to work in-person in Berlin (we help you relocate if needed)
• We hire for slope, not intercept. We don't care about credentials; we care about trajectory

You're NOT a Good Fit If

• You're picky about what you work on
• You lack curiosity or the hunger to learn
• You prefer structured environments with clear boundaries
• You think AI is just hype
• You want to specialize in one technology

Why Hera?

We're building this team like Real Madrid: small, elite, with each person being a superstar. We believe we can reach $100M ARR with less than 20 people. As a founding engineer, you'll have:

• Life-changing equity stake
• Above-market salary
• Build a product used by thousands daily
• The chance to redefine how millions of users create video
• Office in Berlin Mitte (1 minute from Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz)
• All meals on us - we serve lunch and dinner 6 days/week