Lead AI Engineer (m/f/d)

About Flip

Flip is a leading AI-powered platform designed to enhance the employee experience for frontline workers across industries like retail, manufacturing, and logistics. Its mission is to connect every employee to all necessary resources through a single app with one-touch access.

Role Overview

As the Lead AI Engineer, you will spearhead the AI engineering discipline, owning the architecture, setting standards, and guiding the technical direction across Flip Fusion, Ask AI agent gateway, and Flip Flows automation products. You will manage a team of three AI engineers, combining hands-on coding with leadership and strategic influence.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and implement a unified AI architecture and standards across multiple Flip AI products.
• Address complex challenges related to multi-agent systems that are tailored yet adaptable to various customers, balancing ambition with reliability and cost efficiency.
• Lead and mentor a team of three AI engineers to develop autonomous technical leadership within the team.
• Allocate approximately 70% of your time to direct coding and solving critical technical challenges, with the remainder dedicated to people and technical leadership.
• Collaborate effectively with product managers and engineering leads to influence architecture decisions through persuasive argumentation rather than authority.
• Work within a technical stack involving Python, pydantic-ai for orchestration, qdrant for vector search, Azure AI for model deployment on Kubernetes, integrated into JVM-based (Kotlin, Micronaut) and Go backends.
• Shape and develop the relatively new field of AI engineering at Flip, with ample opportunity for innovation and establishing best practices.

Required Qualifications

• At least 7 years of professional software engineering experience, preferably in backend, platform, or full-stack roles with senior or staff-level contributions.
• Proven hands-on experience in designing, deploying, and operating production-grade large language model (LLM) powered systems including retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool calling, multi-component processing (MCP), orchestration, and evaluation frameworks.
• Strong expertise in multi-agent orchestration, which is central to the role's technical architecture.
• Established technical leadership abilities, including ownership of architecture, leading design reviews, writing RFCs, and defining team standards.
• Demonstrated capability to influence and drive technical decisions without formal authority through credibility and effective communication.
• Experience in coaching or mentoring engineers, growing their skills rather than simply delegating work.
• Clear dedication to people leadership, including managing and developing a small engineering team.
• Excellent communication abilities and business-level English proficiency (C1 level).

Preferred (Nice-to-Have)

• Formal experience in managing people, including conducting performance reviews, development discussions, and hiring.
• Experience leading a discipline or technical craft across multiple teams in a matrix organization.
• Background in product domains involving frontline or deskless workforces, high-volume B2B SaaS environments, or similar sectors.
• Expertise in optimizing cost, latency, and reliability for LLM systems with guardrails, fallback mechanisms, and evaluation systems.
• Any level of German language skills, helpful in parts of the company but not required.

What Flip Offers

• A remote-first work approach with flexibility for home office and occasional in-person meetings or events in Berlin or Stuttgart with prior notice.
• A focus on work-life balance including covered costs of E-Gym-Wellpass memberships and job bike leasing options.
• An energized and motivated workplace culture characterized by a relaxed environment and recognition of success.
• An opportunity to impact a fast-growing young tech company and develop personally and professionally.
• Regular team-building events and culture days promoting connection among employees.
• Possibility to work from other locations within the European Union under discussion during interview.

Diversity and Inclusion

Flip embraces diversity and inclusion openly. Gender identity, age, sexual identity, origin, religion, worldview, and disability status do not affect hiring decisions. The core focus is on cultural fit and role suitability.