Backend Engineer / Developer

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

About acemate

Founded less than a year ago, acemate has quickly become Germany's leading AI learning platform for universities, trusted by top-tier institutions across three countries, including TU Munich , WHU and the Deutsche Industrie- und Handelskammer (DIHK) .

• 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 education 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.

Meet the Team

• Antong (CEO): BCG, BMW & Antler background, leads business strategy, DJ by night
• Jan (CTO): NLP research, experience from SAP & N26, morning bike commuter
• Paul (CPO): Product expert with startup and education research background, devoted dog dad
• Emile (Fullstack): Ex-founder with product & AI background, ETH graduate, avid runner
• Anas (Fullstack): TypeScript specialist, functional programming enthusiast, chief photography officer
• Alejandro (Founder's Associate): Mechanical engineering background, Roland Berger & Amazon experience, reggaeton enjoyer

We have an office in Berlin and believe in the value of in-person work, but we’re also realistic about the time people spend commuting.

Tasks

What You'll Do

As a core team member, you'll have significant influence on product decisions, technical architecture, and overall strategy. You’ll focus on backend work and help scale the systems that power our product and AI features.

• Design and implement modern APIs, background jobs, and internal tools
• Help shape infrastructure for reliability, performance, and security
• Contribute to access control systems and enterprise-grade integrations (e.g. SSO, multi-tenancy, white-labeling)
• Collaborate closely with the product team to turn user needs into robust backend solutions
• Work on AI workflows and async pipelines that make learning smarter and more personalized

Examples from the past of what you might build:

• Complex AI pipelines that extract textual and visual content from diverse documents and embed topics in knowledge graphs
• Backend migration from a monolithic fullstack setup to a dedicated API layer with granular access control
• Custom authorization engine to handle growing complexity across different institutional settings

Tech Stack:

• API backend : Hono, tRPC, Bun, Typescript
• Database : PostgreSQL (via Supabase)
• Infrastructure: Cloudflare (Workers, Pages, Workflows, R2, KV), Google Cloud (Gemini, Cloud Run)
• Tooling : Sentry, PostHog, Langfuse, Stripe
• AI : Custom pipelines built with the Vercel AI SDK
• Frontend : TypeScript, React, Tailwind CSS

Don't worry if you're not familiar with everything from the start. We believe in your ability to learn fast and adapt to new frameworks and tools as we go.

Requirements

What We're Looking For

• Strong backend skills : Solid experience working with APIs, job queues, databases, and distributed systems
• Builder mindset : You’re hands-on, take ownership, and think in terms of outcomes
• Startup experience : You’re comfortable in fast-paced, evolving environments
• Balanced AI approach: You knew how to code before Cursor and AI tools, but understand how to leverage them effectively
• Product passion: High identification with our mission to transform education
• Bonus : Experience with auth systems, infra/devops, or frontend work (Next.js/React)

Benefits

Benefits

• Competitive salary package with equity component
• Working in a small but driven team built around performance and learning
• Flexible environment with high degree of autonomy and option to work remotely
• Frequent team events and acemate parties!

Ready to Join Us?

Send us your GitHub profile, your portfolio and any other relevant links, and let's build the future of education together.

We're also hiring a Founding Engineer - reach out to us if you know someone.