Founding Engineer (Full-Stack)

imagi; Stockholms kommun; Hybrid; SEK 800,000 - 1,100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity/stock options

Founding engineer seat

AI-first workflow

Flexible working + 30 days vacation

Pension & wellness allowance

Job summary

imagi is hiring its first in-house engineer in Stockholm to build a compliant AI-enabled K-12 platform. You will own core backend features with Kotlin, Spring Boot, and PostgreSQL, shaping safety layers and data governance for students.

You’ll work closely with the CTO/CPO, initially alongside an agency, and become the internal owner of the codebase as the team grows. You’ll join a hybrid, mission-driven company that values rapid iteration, real impact in classrooms, and thoughtful, scalable

Qualifications

• 4–7 years of engineering experience in startups or fast-moving product teams.
• Strong backend fundamentals including databases, API design, and cloud infrastructure.
• Familiarity with Kotlin or Java and willingness to learn our stack.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship backend features end-to-end (Kotlin, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL).
• Build safety, moderation, and compliance layers for AI tools used by K-12 students.
• Drive infrastructure and security roadmap with agency partners and internal team.
• Own codebase over time and ensure knowledge is retained inside imagi.
• Use AI daily to boost output and shape an AI-first engineering culture.
• Engage with teachers and districts to land features in classrooms and feed learnings back into roadmaps.
• Shape hiring and growth as the team scales.

Skills

Backend development

Kotlin

Java

API design

Cloud infrastructure

Relational databases

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Kotlin

Spring Boot

PostgreSQL

Job description

We're a small, hybrid team with a big mission. We move fast, care deeply about educators and students, and love working together. We just raised $4.5M to bring safe AI to every classroom, and we're looking for our first in-house engineer to build it with us.
About Imagi
School districts across the US know they need to bring AI into classrooms. Board members are asking, state grants are available, and students who do not learn AI today will be behind the ones who do. But the AI tools that actually work were not built for schools. They do not meet COPPA or FERPA requirements, and every district leader knows they are one news story away from a problem they cannot explain to their school board.
imagi is the only K-12 platform that puts all three things districts need in one place: a student-safe, compliant AI environment; a structured curriculum that has students actually learning and building real applications with AI; and professional development so teachers do not have to be AI experts to teach it.
The role
You will be engineer #1. Today, our product is built by our CTO/CPO together with an embedded development agency (a PM, designer, developers, and a SDET) that ships fast and well. You will not replace them; you will become the internal core they build around: the person who knows our product and codebase inside out, owns more and more of it over time, and helps decide what we build next.
You will ship backend features end to end on our Kotlin, Spring Boot, and PostgreSQL stack, build the safety and compliance layers that make AI tools like Lovable and ElevenLabs safe for students, and use AI daily to move faster than a traditional team could. You will work side by side with our co-founder and CTO/CPO in Stockholm, most days in person, because we want to build trust, speed, and shared context as quickly as possible. As the engineering team grows around you, you will shape how we hire and how we work.
What You'll Own

• Design, build, and ship product features end to end, from a teacher problem to production, with a focus on our backend (Kotlin, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL) and the APIs that power our Flutter app.
• Build the safety, moderation, and compliance layers that make third-party AI tools (Lovable, ElevenLabs, and more) safe for K-12 students: guardrails, content moderation, age-appropriate constraints, and audit trails.
• Drive our infrastructure and security roadmap together with our agency team: containerization, database hardening, and the practices that protect student data.
• Become the internal owner of our codebase over time: review the agency's work, raise the bar on quality, and make sure knowledge lives inside imagi.
• Use AI tools daily to multiply your output, and help define how an AI-first engineering team at imagi should work.
• Talk to teachers and districts, see your work land in classrooms, and feed what you learn back into the roadmap.
• Help shape our engineering culture and future hires as the internal team grows around you.

Where you're based
Stockholm. Our wider team is remote-friendly and meets as a full team once a quarter, but this role is different: as our first engineer, you will work in person with our CTO/CPO most days.
What We Offer

• Competitive compensation and meaningful equity/stock options, so you own a real piece of what you build.
• A true founding-engineer seat: engineer #1, with direct influence on product, architecture, culture, and every engineering hire after you.
• An AI-first way of working, with the tools and freedom to move as fast as you can.
• Flexible working plus 30 days vacation.
• Tjänstepension (occupational pension) and friskvårdsbidrag (wellness allowance).
• A close-knit, international team that takes its mission seriously and has fun doing it.
• Real ownership and visible impact: your work ships and reaches classrooms fast.

What You Bring

• Around 4-7 years of engineering experience, including real ownership at one or more startups or fast-moving product teams. You have shipped things that mattered with minimal process around you.
• You are comfortable working across different languages and stacks, with strong backend fundamentals: relational databases, API design, and cloud infrastructure. Solid Kotlin or Java experience is a big plus, but we hire for fundamentals and expect you to pick up our stack fast.
• You are AI-native. AI tools are part of how you build every day, and you use them to raise both speed and quality, not to produce slop.
• Maximum energy, hunger, and curiosity.
• Product judgment. You care who the feature is for and push back when something does not make sense.
• Strong ownership. You can take a goal and run with it end to end on a lean team, and you communicate clearly along the way.
• You are based in Stockholm, or ready to relocate. This role is in person with our CTO/CPO most days.
• You care about the mission: kids learning to create with AI, safely.

Nice to have

• Hands-on experience with Kotlin and Spring Boot.
• Experience building with LLM APIs, moderation pipelines, or agentic AI tools.
• Background in edtech, K-12, or other compliance-heavy domains (COPPA, FERPA, GDPR), or in security and infrastructure work.
• Experience collaborating with (or reviewing the work of) external agencies or contractors.
• Familiarity with tools like Lovable, Claude, ElevenLabs, or Synthesia.
• Interest in growing into a senior or leadership role as the team scales.