Staff Engineer

Mercura ( YC W25) helps the companies that build the real world move at software speed, automating the back-office work that runs the $12 trillion industry behind every hospital, school, and power plant. We started with one of their biggest bottlenecks - turning messy technical requests into accurate quotes. With a team of 16, we're now targeting $10M by the end of 2026 as well as our expansion into the US.

About the role

As a Staff Engineer , you will be the technical backbone of Mercura's engineering team - spanning multiple products and development streams. This is a deeply hands-on role for engineers who lead by doing: writing production code, solving the hardest architectural problems, and making the people around them meaningfully better.

We're looking for a highly technical engineers who want to ship core systems, strengthen architecture across products, and leave every codebase they touch in better shape than they found it. If you want outsized technical ownership without moving into management, this is your role.

What you will be working on

• Technical Leadership in Code: Own the most complex and highest-leverage engineering work across Mercura's product suite - building core systems, shared frameworks, and critical infrastructure that other engineers build on top of.

• Cross-Product Architecture: Define and evolve architecture decisions across multiple products. You'll make the calls that prevent architectural dead-ends two years from now.

• Hands-On Execution: Spend the majority of your time writing and shipping code. You lead by example - when something is hard, you're in the trenches.

• Engineering Quality: Eliminate technical debt by refactoring abstractions and raising reliability, standards across all teams.

• Technical Mentorship: Elevate the engineers around you through code review, pairing, and direct feedback. Help teams deliver consistently without burning out or accumulating hidden risk.

• AI Systems: Contribute to the architecture and implementation of Mercura's AI capabilities - from LLM pipelines to data infrastructure - at the intersection of performance and product quality.

What we offer

• Actual ownership: You own a real area end to end. No one stands between you and your problem. It's uncomfortable at times, and that's exactly why you'll grow faster here than in any normal job.

• Exceptional colleagues: You'll work alongside experienced operators, ex-founders, Science Olympiad medallists, and top graduates from Google, Bain, MIT, TUM, Harvard, CDTM, Oxford, and Cambridge.

• Build something with real-world impact : We ship code that directly helps a massive, yet overlooked manual industry run more efficiently and sustainably. With us, you can work on AI that contributes to economic growth and stability on a huge scale.

• Radical clarity: You'll always know where the company stands and why we decide what we decide. Your input is genuinely wanted, and the best argument wins.

• Steepest possible learning curve: There's no faster way to grow than building a company from scratch. You'll take real responsibility, do things no one has done before, and have founder-like freedom in your domain. Over five Mercura alumni have gone on to found their own companies and raise millions after their time with us.

• Tools, no questions: Your own company card and any AI or productivity tools you need to do your best work, without approval theater.

• Real shares: Real equity in Mercura inclduing voting rights, with the most favorable tax treatment. No VSOP, no ESOP.

• The everyday: Free team dinners up to 4x/week, UrbanSportsClub membership, a company bike, and team workouts 3x/week. Easy relocation to Munich — our office sits in the WERK1 startup incubator, with access to apartments next door from around €800/month.

What we're looking for

Technical Skills & Experience:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of solving genuinely hard technical problems in production

• Deep expertise across the stack - strong in backend systems, APIs, and infrastructure, comfortable in frontend when needed (Python, React, TypeScript)

• Proven experience designing and evolving systems across multiple products and teams

• Experience improving system performance, reliability, and scalability at scale

• Cloud & DevOps fluency: containerization (Docker), cloud infrastructure (Azure/AWS/GCP), infrastructure as code (Terraform)

• Experience building or integrating AI systems, LLMs, or large-scale data pipelines is a strong plus

Commitment & Mindset:

• Deep technical ownership: You hold the bar. You notice when things are slipping and do something about it - without being asked

• Leads through doing: Your authority comes from your output and your judgment, not your title. You mentor by being the best engineer in the room

• Multiplier mentality: You measure your success not just by what you ship, but by how much better the team ships after working with you

• Mission-driven: Your work is part of how you define yourself. You're fully committed to achieving ambitious goals amid uncertainty

• Pragmatic and decisive: You know when to go fast and when to go slow. You make architectural calls with incomplete information and stand behind them

• You want to work in-person in Munich with a higher intensity than in a 9-5 job

Your team & mentors

You will work with

• Sean (Co-Founder & CTO; Silver Medallist at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO))

• Kolya (prev. SWE at SF-based startup Etleap)

• Admir (Bronze Medallist at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI))

• Nico (prev. Engineering at SaaS startups Luminovo & Fides)

• Saad (prev. SWE at Deepmind & startups)

• Christian (prev. SWE at startup Houm)

Your mentors will be

• Rohan Ramanath (General Manager AI Product at Nubank, prev. co-founder Hyperplane)

• Daniel Ribeiro Silva (Senior Director of ML at Nubank, prev. co-founder Hyperplane)

About the process

1. Intro Call – Casual chat with one of our founders to get to know each other and learn about Mercura.

2. Technical Take-Home – A 3-hour exercise based on a real problem from our work

3. Technical Interview – Present your results in a 45-minute session and discuss your approach.

4. On-Site – Get to know the team at our Munich office.

5. Offer – If we see a great fit, we'll make you an offer. Once you accept, we'll do 2–3 reference checks.

About the Founders

We are Lukas, Stefan & Sean , the co-founders of Mercura.

We share a deep commitment to excellence and the discipline to pursue what others might consider impossible.

Two of us come from non-academic families, and we all know what it means to create our own paths and overcome barriers. This experience shapes our belief in equal opportunity and fuels our dedication to social mobility.

Lukas (left) is responsible for business development at Mercura. With his background as a Data Scientist at Allianz and at Google in Silicon Valley, he brings extensive expertise in data and AI.
Lukas’ family has been active in the construction industry for over 100 years, giving him a deep understanding and passion for the sector's specific needs.

Sean (middle) is responsible for technical development at Mercura. As a top 0.01% physicist, Sean earned a Silver medal for Germany at the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), began researching with the Max Planck Institute at the age of 16, and has since published at leading machine learning conferences.

Stefan (right) leads product development at Mercura. Previously, he worked in management consulting at Bain & Company, where he helped manufacturers improve their operations.
Stefan leverages his research experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School to develop innovative solutions for the industry.

At Mercura, we believe that the best ideas emerge when people from different backgrounds collaborate together. We hire based on ability, mindset, and values, and we live by one simple rule: the best idea wins.

Beyond Mercura, we actively support initiatives that promote diversity and gender equity and commit a portion of our personal income each year to organizations expanding opportunity for others.

Our operating principles: