Senior Product Engineer (all genders) - Coding & People Management

Instaffo; Berlin; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

koppla Culture Playbook

Job summary

koppla GmbH seeks a Senior Product Engineer (all genders) who blends hands-on software development with people leadership. You will coach junior engineers, lead product delivery streams, and progressively assume formal line management.

The role bridges frontend and backend work, requiring strong communication with product and design in a Berlin-based team. Fluency in English is required, and the role involves collaboration across streams and a strong emphasis on user outcomes.

Qualifications

• English language proficiency required: Fluent (C1).
• You have senior-level engineering abilities and can independently build and ship production software.

Responsibilities

• Coach junior engineers and grow their skills.
• Lead projects and progressively take on people management responsibilities.
• Collaborate with product and design to deliver end-to-end features.
• Grow into larger project leadership and stream responsibility over time.

Skills

Senior engineer

Coaching experience

Product-mindedness

English fluency

Tools

Typescript

Vue.js

NestJS

PostgreSQL

Job description

You are interested in the position as Senior Product Engineer (all genders) - Coding & People Management at koppla GmbH?

Requirements

Please note that this position requires work authorization for the DACH region.

Language: English - Fluent (C1)

There isn't one required career path into this role. You might be:

• A senior engineer who regularly works with junior engineers and genuinely enjoys helping them grow, now ready to take formal responsibility for their development and performance.
• A hands‑on team lead from a small team, looking for a role where building software and developing people belong together.
• An engineer who has moved into management and consciously wants to return to more hands‑on development, while keeping meaningful people responsibility.

What matters across all three paths

• You believe in quality and want to build the best possible experience for our end users - because you care about them.
• You have senior-level engineering abilities. You can independently build and ship production software, debug unfamiliar systems, review code thoughtfully, and explain technical trade-offs. You are flexible to switch between FE and BE however needed, it could be 50/50 at times, but also 80/20.
• You have coaching experience. You've helped less experienced engineers improve over time and can explain what you did and what changed. Occasional onboarding or code review alone isn't enough. Prior formal management experience is welcome, but not required.
• You are willing to own all parts of people leadership over time. You listen, give direct feedback, set clear expectations, and address performance issues rather than avoiding them. You want responsibility for people, not just the enjoyable parts of mentoring.
• Product‑mindedness, structure and collaborative judgment. You care about user outcomes, and collaborate closely with engineering and non‑engineering colleagues. You're comfortable with startup ambiguity and improve how work gets done without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Clear communication and presence. You're fluent in written and spoken English and want to work closely with the team in our Berlin office at least 2-3 days a week.

Beyond the role‑specific requirements, you also see your own values reflected in our Culture Playbook.

Activities

Our engineers work in two product development streams. In a ramp up phase, you'll initially coach our junior engineers across both streams while learning our product, codebase, and ways of working. Our existing stream leads own project delivery, as you build context, you'll progressively take on project leadership and people management yourself.

• Build and ship product. Build and own the success of features from end to end. Understand the user problem behind the work and collaborate with Product, Design, and other Engineers to find pragmatic solutions. Hands‑on contribution is a core part of the role, not something you leave behind as you take on leadership.
• Coach through the work. Pair with other Engineers, explain your reasoning, and give specific, actionable feedback. Help them build sound technical judgment and become more independent.
• Take people responsibility. Run regular 1:1s after an onboarding period, set development goals, discuss performance, and have honest conversations when something isn't working. This is formal line management, not just informal mentoring. Work closely with our VP Product and the stream leads to connect development goals with everyday project work.
• Grow into project leadership. Initially, learn alongside our existing stream leads. As your understanding grows, take responsibility for increasingly substantial projects, and in the future stream responsibility: clarify scope, coordinate implementation, surface risks, and help the team deliver.

Our Tech Stack

• Frontend: Typescript, Vue 3, Tailwind, Netlify, GH Actions
• Backend: Typescript, AWS, NestJS, Prisma, PostgreSQL, REST, Websockets, Terraform, GH Actions

Team

At koppla, we're a fun and ambitious team on a mission to help the construction industry build more efficiently. We're already partnering with top construction companies and delivering impressive results for our customers (multi-months speed-ups discovered through koppla).

Our ambitions are backed by leading VCs (Earlybird, Newion) and industry angels as we tackle a billion-dollar opportunity problem in an underdigitized and underserved market.

Our culture is core to who we are and we've built one we're genuinely proud of. We are not looking for hypergrowth - we believe in hiring slowly to create an environment of few but very high-performing team members that build a truly great product (similar to Netflix, Ashby or Linear).

Our P&E team works in two product development streams. We value transparency, respect, ownership, and collaboration, and we are committed to creating an environment of high-performing team members.

About The Company

koppla vereinfacht die Terminplanung und -steuerung von Bauprojekten, um effizienter, schneller und günstiger zu bauen!

Hi Wir sind koppla!

Wir sind ein motiviertes und ambitioniertes Team, das sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, die Bauindustrie dabei zu unterstützen, effizienter zu bauen. Wir arbeiten bereits mit führenden Bauunternehmen zusammen und erzielen messbare Ergebnisse für unsere Kunden (mehrmonatige Zeitersparnisse durch koppla).

Unsere Ambitionen werden von führenden VCs (Earlybird, Newion) und Angels aus der Branche unterstützt, da wir uns einem billion-dollar Problem in einer unterdigitalisierten und unterversorgten Branche widmen.

Bei uns ist Unternehmenskultur mehr als nur ein Buzzword: Wir leben Eigenverantwortung, offene Kommunikation und ehrliches Feedback – und das alles in einem Umfeld, wo Teamgeist über Konkurrenzdenken steht. So schaffen wir ein Team, das Höchstleistungen abliefert und sich gleichzeitig wohlfühlt und Spaß hat.

Was dich bei uns erwartet:

• Echter Gestaltungsspielraum – bring deine Ideen ein und setz sie um
• Kundennähe mit Sinn – du gestaltest mit, was unseren Nutzer:innen wirklich hilft
• Ein starkes Team – geprägt durch Offenheit, Vertrauen und Eigenverantwortung
• Equity-Optionen – du profitierst direkt vom gemeinsamen Erfolg
• Eine Kultur, die hält, was sie verspricht (koppla Culture Playbook)
• Kurze Wege & schnelle Entscheidungen – keine Bürokratie, nur Fortschritt

Du willst nicht einfach nur mitlaufen, sondern mitgestalten? Dann bist du bei uns genau richtig. Lass uns gemeinsam die Bauindustrie verändern!