Founding AI Engineer

• At Hey Telo, we're building AI agents for the real world.
• German tradespeople — the "Handwerker" — are stuck on calls and paperwork instead of focusing on their craft. Our voice AI answers their phones, schedules jobs, and handles customer communication, giving them hours back every day.
• We're YC-backed, based in Munich, and at the stage where the next hires shape the company itself.
• As Founding AI Engineer, you'll ship our voice agents, build the infra, and sit with the customers using them — the full loop, with no layers between you and the work that matters.

📌 Quick facts

Full-Time | Start ASAP

In-person in Munich

Compensation: 70k€ - 110k€ (salary + equity)

What you will be working on

• Voice agents. Push our agents toward natural, reliable, trustworthy conversations in German. Cut hallucinations, handle edge cases, get latency under control.
• Backend infra. Build the systems that handle thousands of calls per day without dropping any.
• Customers. Sit with Handwerker. Hear their actual problems. Ship things that solve them. The best decisions we make come out of these conversations, not papers.

✅ You might be a fit if you

• Are a strong builder
• Have expertise in modern LLM techniques (transformers, agents, RAG, fine-tuning, context engineering)
• Have experience in full-stack software engineering (React, Typescript, Python)
• Big plus: you have experience with building voice agents (Vapi, Pipecat, LiveKit)
• AI tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) is part of how you work.
• Want full ownership from day one — you build the structure, not wait for it.
• Speak fluent German (at least C1) and actually want to sit with Handwerker, hear their problems, and let that shape what you build.

❌ You might not be a fit if you

• You have no prior experience in software engineering teams
• Want a remote-first, async culture — this is in-person Munich. A lot of the value comes from being in the room with customers and the team.
• Need clear structures and processes handed to you. (You’ll be the one building them.)
• 💥 Why join now?
• YC-backed, live in market, 200+ Handwerker using us every day, 40% growth MoM
• One of our first engineering hires — direct line to the founders, customers, and every product decision
• The German Handwerker market is enormous and underserved. Voice AI is hard enough that few will do it well. We intend to be the ones who do.

Perks

• Urban Sports Club membership - feel free to join our weekly team workouts
• Huel stocked daily (our fuel)
• 🎯 Our hiring process
• Intro call (30 min)
• Technical Interview - Take-Home Exercise, including a code walkthrough
• Lunch with the team