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 an AI/LLM Engineer, you will play a key role in building agentic AI systems end-to-end. This is a fast-paced, hands-on role for engineers with high agency, strong technical depth and founder mindset. You’ll work on building reliable AI systems in production - from retrieval and LLM orchestration to tool-using agents and product integration.

If you’re a passionate builder who excels at the intersection of LLMs, data systems, AI, data engineering, and full-stack development, this is your opportunity to shape how users interact with AI in real-world workflows.

What you will be working on

Agentic Systems: Design and build LLM-powered agentic systems end-to-end, from experimentation to production deployment

Retrieval & Context: Build retrieval and context pipelines (RAG, hybrid search, structured retrieval) to enable reliable reasoning over large volumes of technical and commercial data

AI Evals: Develop evaluation and monitoring systems to measure and improve AI performance in production

Data Pipelines: Build scalable pipelines to process and structure large volumes of unstructured documents and data

Feedback Loops: Implement automated feedback pipelines that allow AI systems to learn from usage data and human feedback

AI Infra: Own the architecture and reliability of AI systems in production, ensuring they are fast, scalable, and robust

Product Integration: Collaborate with other stellar engineers to deeply integrate AI capabilities into the product experience

What we offer

Steepest possible learning curve: There's no faster way to grow than building a company from scratch. You'll be thrown into the cold water, 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.

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.

Ownership over comfort: 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. The bar stays high because the people next to you are the biggest lever for your growth.

Radical clarity: You'll always know where the company stands and why we decide what we decide — the real numbers, the wins and the setbacks, and the thinking behind them. Your input is genuinely wanted, and the best argument wins.

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 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 an apartment next door for around €800/month.

What we're looking for

Technical Skills & Experience:

Proven track record of architecting and building complex, AI/LLM-powered systems or agents in production, including model serving, orchestration of agent workflows, monitoring, and scaling AI workloads

Designing systems that process and structure large volumes of unstructured data