Software Engineer (f/m/d) | 55-85k EUR | Cologne

Media Ems; Remote; EUR 55.000 - 85.000; Vollzeit

Zusammenfassung

A forward-thinking software company in Germany is on the lookout for a skilled software engineer to take ownership of end-to-end product features, from database to user interface. You will join a collaborative team working on a real-time data platform that revolutionizes the manufacturing sector. Ideal candidates will have 3-5 years of experience, a strong problem-solving track record, and practical AI tools usage. Flexible remote work and standard startup benefits will be provided.

Leistungen

Equity options

Well-designed office in Cologne

Free drinks/snacks

Urban Sports Club/EGYM Wellpass

Qualifikationen

• A proven track record of solving complex bugs with supporting evidence.
• 3-5 years of software engineering experience, or less if exceptional evidence exists.
• Practical use of AI tools in development and early-stage startup environments.

Aufgaben

• Own features end-to-end - from database to UI to user feedback.
• Contribute to a real-time data platform processing millions of messages.
• Collaborate with customers and the community via various platforms.

Kenntnisse

Proven bug-solving experience

Software engineering experience (3-5 years)

Practical use of AI tools

Experience with Go and Svelte

Knowledge of IT/OT protocols (MQTT, OPC UA)

Active contributions to open-source

Tools

Docker

Kafka

Node-RED

Jobbeschreibung

YOUR PROFILE

You might be a fit if you have:

• Built something from your own idea AND shipped it AND know what happened next (Did users like it? Did it work? What would you change?)
• You think about tradeoffs: "We could do X in 2 weeks or Y in 2 days with 80% of the value"
• A proven track record of solving complex bugs, with evidence such as post-mortem, blog post, or PR link.
• Experience in early-stage startup environments (small teams, high autonomy) and the intention for learning new technologies and self-reliance to take responsibility.
• 3–5 years of software engineering experience (or less if your ownership evidence is exceptional)
• Practical use of AI tools in development.
• Ideally: Go and Svelte experience (our stack), but we care more about learning ability
• Ideally active contributions to open-source projects.
• Ideally familiarity with IT/OT protocols (MQTT, OPC UA) or Industrial IoT.

Also a good sign: You go to meetups, read HN, or learn technologies your job doesn't require.

But honestly, we care more that you can learn what's needed than what you already know, but the tech foundation matters too. Our values

This probably isn't for you if you prefer well-defined tickets, structured processes, or a role where someone tells you what to build next.

WHAT WE OFFER?

FAQ

• Backend or Frontend?: Both. We're looking for product engineers who own features end-to-end - from database to UI to user feedback. The split varies by week.
• Remote: Honest answer - it depends if you can handle it. One dev thrived fully remote for 2 years, others felt left out. Office 2-3x/week works for most (collaborate there, deep work at home). Full remote possible if you're genuinely self-directed (+ monthly on sites)
• Salary: 55-85k EUR (depending on your experience) + equity
• Benefits: the standard stuff you’ll expect in a startup (well designed office in the heart of cologne, free drinks/snacks, ergonomic tables/chairs, Urban Sports Club/EGYM Wellpass, etc.).

How To Apply: Upload your CV and answer this question (2-3 paragraphs): "Tell us about something you built that wasn't assigned to you." What problem did you see? Why did you decide to solve it? What happened?. This could be a side project, homelab setup, a tool you built at work, or an open-source contribution.

YOUR IMPACT AT UMH

Hi, Alex and Jeremy here from UMH.

8 years ago, Jeremy was absolutely frustrated with the status quo of data infrastructure in manufacturing. Companies paid millions per year for "shitty 90s software" and are still doing that today, when there is much better software out there for open-source. So we decided that we can do this better, first founded a System Integrator, realized most of the tasks in setting up and maintaining a data infrastructure can be standardized, and decided to found the currently VC-backed UMH, which is built on open source software and is open source itself.

What we're actually building: We build and scale a real-time data platform that runs hundreds of Benthos pipelines inside a single Docker container (UMH Core), processing millions of industrial messages that control actual production processes.

Plus a local-first user interface (Management Console) where both non-technical factory workers and power-users/developers can work together. And yes, we care about UI in enterprise/industrial software.

You’ll love this if you want to:

• Understand distributed systems. And by that we don’t mean deploying an Ingress into a k8s cluster. We mean actually understanding the difficulties of controlling physical manufacturing production lines across resource constrained edge devices and network outages. This could include understanding the IoT protocol MQTT, or why moving away from Kubernetes made us more cloud-native.
• You want to build truly local-first software - browser-based databases, E2E encryption, efficient sync of hundreds of thousands of datapoints, all while keeping the UI as snappy as Linear/Superhuman.
• You believe good engineering means solving the whole problem - this is sometimes adding a new industrial protocol converter, and sometimes just guiding the user better through the UI so that he finds a slightly different but still applicable and already existing protocol converter.
• Want to ship fast with safety nets. PRs to production in 3h-4h through automated testing, code reviews, and staged rollouts.
• You want to shape what gets built, not just how. You'll talk to users, challenge specs, and propose alternatives when you see a simpler solution.
• Collaborate closely with our Customer Success and the user community via Discord, Slack, Linear, and GitHub.
• Disrupt an industry that needs it. Ask our customers. Ask any of our community members. Controlling manufacturing systems is so complex, the existing vendors are stuck somewhere in the 90s, because they never managed to update their systems.
• Contribute to an Open-Source project.
• Want to work with technologies like Kafka (Redpanda), Docker, S6, fly.io, Grafana, Node-RED, k3s, Helm, Go, Svelte, Typescript. But look for yourself.