Senior Software Engineer

acemate is building an AI learning & teaching platform for higher and further education institutions. We have strong traction, secured funding and are entering an exciting growth phase. We're looking for a passionate Senior Software Engineer / Developer to drive our product forward and help us scale.

About acemate

Founded in 2024, acemate has quickly become the leading AI learning platform for higher and further education, trusted by top-tier institutions across four countries, including University of Cologne, WHU and the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs).

• Our Mission: Democratizing access to personalized learning. We don’t believe that AI will replace educators. Instead, we empower them to design and deliver personalized learning experiences at scale.
• Our Growth: We've raised pre-seed funding and are growing rapidly. While we focus on higher and further education in the DACH area today, we're already expanding into new regions and markets.
• Our Culture: We’re a young, driven team passionate about tackling the toughest challenges in education. We embrace builder culture and minimize scheduled meetings for ad-hoc discussions and maximized focus on coding and creating.

Tasks

What You'll Be Doing

As a Software Engineer on our founding team, you'll play a major part in shaping our architecture and technical direction. You'll take full ownership of the backend systems powering our apps—handling everything from initial database design to API endpoints and monitoring dashboards.

• End-to-end ownership: You'll own the features you build from start to finish. This means taking charge of database modeling, API design, deployment, and system monitoring. You'll also continuously improve our architecture to ensure our Effect & TypeScript codebase stays clean, strictly type-safe, and highly maintainable.
• Tackle hard problems, not just CRUD: Your day-to-day will revolve around the deep backend engineering that makes our platform work. Instead of just wiring up basic endpoints, you'll design complex authorization models, AI pipelines, and asynchronous workflows to solve real user problems.

Examples of past initiatives:

• Building a complex authorization engine that combines ReBac and ABAC models to handle the complicated permissions of different institutional environments

• Creating advanced AI pipelines to extract text and images from documents, orchestrating multiple models to embed concepts straight into knowledge graphs

• Leading the migration of an older fullstack monolith into a completely type-safe API ecosystem powered by Effect

Tech Stack:

• Backend: Effect.ts, Hono, oRPC, Bun, Typescript
• Database: PostgreSQL (via Supabase)
• Infrastructure: Cloudflare (Workers, Workflows, R2, KV, Hyperdrive), Google Cloud (Gemini, Cloud Run)
• Tooling: Axiom, Sentry, PostHog, Langfuse, Stripe
• AI: Vercel AI SDK

Don't stress if you aren't an expert in every single tool listed above on day one. We trust your ability to learn quickly and pick up new frameworks as you go.

Requirements

What We're Looking For

• 2+ years of software engineering experience with strong TypeScript skills
• Startup experience: You’re comfortable in fast-paced, evolving environments
• Balanced AI approach: You knew how to code before Cursor and Claude Code, but understand how to leverage them effectively
• Product passion: High identification with our mission to transform education
• Bonus: Experience with authz systems, infra/devops, AI, or frontend work (Next.js/React)

Benefits

Benefits

• Competitive salary package with equity component

• Fully covered Deutschlandticket

• BusinessBike (bike or e-bike via leasing, also for private use )

• Working in a small but driven team built around performance and learning

• Flexible environment with high degree of autonomy

• Frequent team events and acemate parties! 🥳