Team Lead (Founding Leader) — AI IDE & Agentic Developer Tooling

European Tech Recruit; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

European Tech Recruit seeks a Team Lead (Founding Leader) to drive the vision for an AI-native DevEco IDE and agentic developer tooling. You will lead a founding research team in Amsterdam, shape direction, and partner with HQ to align research with product strategy.

You will hire and mentor senior experts, scout external partnerships, and oversee the full research lifecycle, including collaboration with universities and industry peers to accelerate tool development.

Qualifications

• Proven leadership experience and ability to hire, mentor, and set technical direction.
• Strong background in IDE development, developer-tools, and DX-focused tooling.
• Excellent written and spoken English; able to communicate with executives and researchers.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical vision for an AI-native IDE and next-generation developer experience for DevEco.
• Hire, mentor, and lead a core team of senior experts, setting technical direction, culture, and quality standards.
• Track and evaluate rapid developments in IDEs, developer tools, and agentic coding systems.
• Develop proof-of-concept prototypes, harnesses, and interactive demos for the product organization.
• Produce strategic technology scouting reports to guide leadership decisions on future investments.
• Build relationships and research collaborations with universities, research institutes, startups and industry experts.
• Bridge local research insights with global product needs, collaborating with international stakeholders and HQ engineers.

Skills

IDE development

Leadership

Developer-tools

Agentic tooling

Developer experience

English communication

Tools

IntelliJ Platform

PSI

LSP

Compiler toolchains

Build systems

LLMs integration

Context engineering

Job description

Team Lead (Founding Leader) — AI IDE & Agentic Developer Tooling

Join a technology organisation developing next-generation AI-native developer tooling and IDE platforms for the emerging HarmonyOS ecosystem. Working at the intersection of developer experience, software engineering infrastructure, and artificial intelligence, the team is creating systems designed to transform how human developers and AI agents collaborate within modern development environments.

This senior-level leadership role offers the opportunity to define and deliver the technical vision for an AI-native DevEco IDE. The position combines IDE platform architecture, agentic coding harnesses, context engineering, compiler toolchains, and AI-driven developer workflows.

Role Overview

You will take ownership of leading a founding research team in Amsterdam, defining technical direction, prototyping frontier developer tools, and supporting strategic product decisions alongside headquarters.

Your responsibilities will cover the full research and leadership lifecycle, including hiring and mentoring senior experts, tracking global developments in agentic tooling, building external industry and academic partnerships, and driving technology scouting for the HarmonyOS developer ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical vision for an AI-native IDE and next-generation developer experience for DevEco.
• Hire, mentor, and lead a core team of senior experts, setting technical direction, culture, and quality standards.
• Track and evaluate rapid developments in IDEs, developer tools, and agentic coding systems (e.g., Claude, Cursor, Trae, Google Antigravity).
• Develop proof-of-concept prototypes, harnesses, and interactive demos to present to the DevEco IDE product organization.
• Produce strategic technology scouting reports to guide leadership decisions on future product investments.
• Build relationships and research collaborations with universities, research institutes, startups, and industry experts in the developer-tools space.
• Bridge local research insights and global product needs, working closely with international stakeholders and headquarters engineering teams.

Required Experience

• Proven hands-on experience in IDE development, developer-tools development, or agentic harness engineering.
• Demonstrated team leadership experience, including hiring, mentoring, and taking accountability for technical direction and delivery.
• Strong understanding of developer experience (DX) and the core principles of effective, practical developer tooling.
• Ability to translate complex technical research into clear strategic insights for product and executive teams.
• Strong written and spoken English communication skills.
• Based in or willing to relocate to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
• Preferred: Familiarity with modern IDE platform architecture (e.g., IntelliJ Platform, PSI, LSP), compiler toolchains, or build systems.
• Preferred: Practical experience integrating LLMs or coding agents into developer workflows (context engineering, agent orchestration, verification).
• Preferred: An existing network or connection within the developer-tools research, startup, or open-source community.

This is an opportunity to tackle frontier challenges at the intersection of developer environments, software infrastructure, and agentic AI. You will play a pivotal role in shaping a platform intended to support the next generation of application developers.

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