I've spent most of my career believing that the best engineers aren't the ones who write the most code — they're the ones who make everyone around them faster, clearer, and more confident.
When I joined the compliance world, I saw the same problem I'd seen at other startups: smart engineers grinding through ambiguous problems alone, reinventing architecture decisions that had already been made three sprints ago, and inheriting systems nobody fully understood. I wanted to build something different at Secfix.
We're looking for a senior engineer who can sit at the hard end of that ambiguity. Someone who opens a blank Notion page, draws the system design, gets the team aligned, and then builds it alongside everyone — setting the technical direction so clearly that mid-level engineers can pick up any part of it and run.
This is also someone who genuinely cares about AI-assisted engineering. Not as a talking point, but as a craft. You've already figured out that Cursor or Claude aren't magic — they're tools that require judgment to use well. And you like teaching people how to use them better.
If that's how you already work, I'd love to meet you. Read on.
— Grigory, CTO & Co-founder
Over 1.78 million SMBs in Europe need to comply with security frameworks — ISO 27001, GDPR, TISAX, SOC 2 — just to sell to enterprise customers. The process is manual, painful, and takes over a year. We automated it.
Our platform integrates with a company's full tech stack — AWS, Azure AD, Jira, GitLab, GCP, and more — automatically extracts compliance evidence, and guides teams to certification in weeks instead of months. Our fastest customer certified in 4 weeks instead of the industry-standard 12+ months.
We grew from €0 to >$1M ARR in two years. We've raised $17M in total ($12M Series A), backed by Alstin Capital, Neosfer (Commerzbank), and Bayern Capital. We're profitable-trajectory, growing fast, and building the team that will take us to European market leadership.
We're fully remote — and we've thought hard about what that actually means. Most remote companies are just Slack + Zoom with a home office budget. We think that's not enough.
We use Gather as our virtual office: a persistent digital space where you can see who's around, drop into a conversation naturally, or focus in quiet. It gives us the spontaneous collisions of a physical office without the commute or the interruptions.
We don't run on tickets. We own products and outcomes — that means planning before coding, writing clearly before meeting, and communicating proactively before someone has to chase you. There are no project managers here. We trust you to run your own work.
We're not 100% async — as a fast-moving team, we believe some synchronous communication matters. We work in European/German timezones and occasionally meet live to unblock things that would take three Slack threads to resolve.
Want to know more? → Work-Life at Secfix · Remote Culture · Team Directory
Here's what this role looks like in practice:
Own the system design on our biggest projects. You're working on major new features — not picking up a ticket, but writing the technical spec, presenting the architecture, getting alignment, and driving it to production. And working on it with the team in a state they can own.
Lead our multi-tenant evolution. Today each customer gets their own workspace. As we grow, we're building support for organisations that need to manage multiple sub-tenants — think a holding company overseeing compliance across several subsidiaries, or a consultancy managing certifications for a portfolio of clients. You'll design the architecture that makes that possible cleanly and at scale.
Build our first AI product. We're moving from "we use AI in our tooling" to "we ship AI to customers." This is a meaningful shift — and one of the most technically interesting challenges we've faced. You'll help define what that looks like and lead the backend architecture that makes it real.
Lay the foundations for agentic AI. Longer-term, we're building towards AI that can autonomously run compliance workflows. The technical decisions made now will define how we get there. You'll be making them.
Bring AI-assisted engineering to the whole team. You're genuinely curious about how AI tooling is changing the way we build — and you share that curiosity openly. You try new tools, figure out what actually works, and bring the rest of the team along with you. Not through formal sessions, but through the natural back-and-forth of working together day to day.
Grow alongside the team. You care about the engineers around you. You review system designs thoughtfully, give real feedback on code, and help people work through hard problems — not by taking over, but by thinking out loud with them. Everyone gets better together.
You've designed and shipped complex backend systems end-to-end — not just contributed to them. You know how to handle ambiguity at the start of a project and messy reality at the end.
You're comfortable taking technical initiative on a project — proposing direction, making calls, and moving forward — without needing consensus at every step.
You write a clear technical design before you open your IDE. And you hold that design loosely — adapting when you get good feedback.
AI-assisted engineering genuinely excites you. You've used tools like Cursor or Claude seriously, and you have opinions on what works and what doesn't.
You mentor naturally — because you care about the people around you, not because it's in your job description.
You communicate proactively in writing. In a remote team, written communication is how decisions get made and context gets shared — you take it seriously.
You want a detailed spec before starting. This role is about writing the spec.
You're happiest as a solo contributor and don't think much about the team around you.
You see AI tooling as overhyped. We're betting on it, and we need someone who already is too.
Required:
8+ years of OOP backend or product engineering experience, with a track record of owning large, complex systems end-to-end
Experience building or integrating AI/ML features in production
Practical experience working with LLMs and RAG-based systems — designing pipelines, managing context, and shipping AI features reliably
Strong OOP fundamentals, Spring Boot, Hibernate (or equivalent frameworks)
Experience leading system design on significant projects — not just contributing to them
Relational database design and SQL optimisation
Experience mentoring engineers and giving substantive design feedback
Strong written communication; comfortable working async across timezones
Able to work in European timezone (CET/CEST)
Nice to have:
Experience with Java in a production environment — our core platform is built with Java Spring Boot, but we work across multiple languages including Python and Golang. You're comfortable moving between stacks and don't need to be a Java specialist to thrive here.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted coding tools (Cursor, Claude)
Previous experience at a fully remote company or early-stage startup
Remote: 100% remote with a real virtual office in Gather
Salary: Local market rates at or above benchmark — we follow the GitLab pay philosophy
Equity: Generous package — we're all owners here
Development budget: €1,000/year — yours to spend on whatever makes you better
Workspace: Remote workspace support + co-working access
Holidays: 26 days + local public holidays
Health insurance: Comprehensive coverage
Annual retreat: Last year we went to Costa Brava
Tech: MacBook, monitors, headphones — the latest
We read every application. Here's what the process looks like:
Technical Assessment - max 50 minutes
Intro call with our Talent Team — ~30 min, mostly about you and the role
Technical Interview I — a real problem, worked through together with our engineering advisor. Think pair programming, not performance.
Technical Interview II — a system design challenge and final conversation with our Tech Lead and Co-founder. This is as much about getting to know each other as it is about the technical problem.
Final culture chat (where needed) — a relaxed 30 min conversation to make sure it feels like a mutual fit. As much for you as it is for us.
Offer
After sending us your application in, please keep an eye out for an email from Grigory (CTO) or the talent team. We will respond and move as quickly as possible. The order of interviews might deviate depending on availability of the interviewers.
We provide feedback after the technical assessment stage regardless of outcome. No ghosting.
We look forward to your application!