Senior Backend Engineer - Support and AI (F/M/D)

AI ENGINEER / AI ENABLEMENT ENGINEER (M/F/D) Location: Flexible — Hamburg, Berlin ABOUT FREENOW FREENOW empowers smarter mobility decisions, helping people move freely and cities thrive. As Europe’s leading Mobility Super App, we serve more than 54 million users across 16 markets and 170+ cities. AI is becoming core to how we build products, operate the platform, and support our teams. To move from experimentation to real, measurable impact, we are building a central AI Enablement & Evaluation team — and we’re looking for a Senior AI Engineer to help turn AI into a reliable, scalable capability across the company. If you enjoy building AI systems that actually ship, scale, and deliver value — not just demos — this is your next ride 🚕 YOUR MISSION As a Senior AI Engineer, you will sit at the intersection of AI engineering, evaluation, and enablement. Your role is to ensure that AI systems at FREENOW are production-ready, measurable, and safe, while accelerating adoption across product and engineering teams. You will help transform AI from isolated pilots into reusable platforms, tools, and workflows used across the organization. YOUR DAILY ADVENTURES WILL INCLUDE * Designing, building, and maintaining production-grade AI systems using LLMs, agents, and retrieval-based architectures * Owning and evolving the AI Evaluation Framework, including: * multi-turn evaluations * quality, safety, and hallucination metrics * offline and production-data evaluation * Partnering with Product, Engineering, Legal, and Security to ensure AI solutions are compliant, observable, and trustworthy * Supporting and scaling internal AI products such as FreenowGPT and domain-specific AI assistants * Enabling teams through shared tooling, patterns, and best practices (e.g. Gemini enablement, prompt & agent patterns) * Building reusable AI components (RAG pipelines, agent orchestration, model access layers) * Helping define standards for agent-ready architecture (MCP integrations, model abstraction, permissions) * Monitoring AI system performance, cost, and reliability in production * Acting as a technical reference point for AI across squads — from experimentation to rollout OUR AI & TECH STACK Python | LLM APIs (Gemini, OpenAI) | Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Databricks | Cloud Infrastructure | APIs & Backend Services Evaluation tooling | Observability & monitoring | Internal developer tooling (Exact tools matter less than strong engineering fundamentals — the stack will evolve.) TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ROLE * You have strong experience as an AI Engineer, ML Engineer, or Senior Software Engineer working with modern AI systems * You’ve built or operated LLM-based systems in production, not just prototypes * You understand the failure modes of LLMs (hallucinations, non-determinism, evaluation challenges) * You consistently balance speed, quality, and pragmatism; knowing when to ship, when to iterate, and when correctness is non-negotiable in production AI systems. * You are comfortable designing evaluation frameworks and defining quality metrics for AI behavior * You have solid backend engineering fundamentals (APIs, services, data access) * You enjoy working across teams and explaining complex AI concepts clearly * You care about reliability, safety, and real business impact, not hype * You are fluent in English NICE TO HAVE * Experience with agentic systems or multi-step workflows * Familiarity with AI governance, risk, or compliance considerations (e.g. GDPR, EU AI Act) * Experience enabling other teams through platforms, SDKs, or internal tools * Prior work in marketplaces, mobility, or large-scale consumer products WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS Most companies experiment with AI. Very few manage to scale it responsibly and profitably. This role is central to: * reducing AI risk in customer-facing systems (support, dispatch, booking), * unlocking company-wide productivity through internal AI products, * and building the technical foundations that allow FREENOW to move fast without breaking trust. You’ll help define how AI is built at FREENOW for years to come. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BENEFITS & PERKS IN A NUTSHELL: * Flexible working arrangements * LinkedIn Learning * Sabbatical & special leave policies * WeRoad partnership * Birthday, 24th + 31st December off * Short term EU work policy * Mobility Credit * Health insurance * Employee assistance program   Plus more local benefits depending on your work location! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION: Freenow is an equal opportunity employer and we consider qualified applicants regardless of race, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age. We want you to grow and evolve, bring your true self to work.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT US: Freenow by Lyft empowers smarter mobility decisions, helping people to move freely and cities to thrive. Through our multi-mobility app, we feature broad options for everyone across 9 European markets and over 180 cities. Millions of passengers can access services including taxis, private hire vehicles, carsharing, car rental, e-scooters, e-bikes, e-mopeds, and public transport within a single app.  In July 2025 Freenow was acquired by Lyft, a global mobility platform, which connects riders and drivers for billions of rides across North America and Europe. Together, Freenow and Lyft are creating a more caring and connected world, with transportation for everyone. We are a global, diverse, highly motivated, and collaborative team that strives for excellence and likes to have fun. Ready for your next ride?

At Superchat, we're rebuilding how businesses talk to their customers. The phone call, the contact form, the support ticket: all of it is being replaced by messaging and AI. We're building the platform that runs underneath. Founded in 2020, Superchat has become the platform of choice for 10,000+ businesses worldwide, from globally recognized brands like Allianz, Auto1, Enpal, Danone, and GASAG to the small businesses, dental practices, and one-person startups that need to look bigger than they are. Today, millions of messages flow through Superchat every single day. We started as a unified inbox: one place for every channel a customer might pick, WhatsApp, email, SMS, Instagram. Then ChatGPT happened, and the second chapter began: AI agents that respond across chat, email, and voice at the quality of the best human teams. We're 100 people, profitable, and have raised €18M in funding (last round 4.5 years ago, we've been growing on our own money since). Headquartered in Berlin. We're hiring an Engineering Manager to lead one or more squads. You'll partner directly with the CTO to develop engineers, ship reliable software, and shape how our team works as we scale. WHO WE WANT Experienced engineering people manager. You bring 3–5+ years of people management experience in software engineering, ideally in B2B SaaS environments. Strong delivery leadership. You have a track record of leading squads of 5-10 engineers through full product and delivery cycles. Technically credible. You come from a strong technical background as a backend or full-stack engineer (former Senior Engineer or equivalent). You read code comfortably, engage on server-side architecture and trade-offs, and contribute meaningfully to technical discussions about the systems your squads own. Backend experience in Java/Kotlin is a plus, since our backend runs on Kotlin/Quarkus. Builder of strong engineers. Your former reports got promoted, took on broader scope, or grew into roles that better matched their strengths. Strong hiring instinct. You have experience hiring engineers and successfully closing high-quality candidates. Comfortable with difficult conversations. You are comfortable having clear, honest, and sometimes difficult conversations when needed. Clear communicator. You are fluent in written and spoken English. You communicate clearly across engineering, product, and leadership teams and create alignment through strong written and verbal communication. WHO WE DON’T WANT Pure delivery manager. You treat engineering as a ticketing operation focused only on timelines and task tracking instead of product quality, technical health, and team growth. We need engineering leaders, not project coordinators. Engineer escaping into management. You moved into management mainly to stop coding rather than because you genuinely enjoy leading, coaching, and developing people. This role requires a real interest in people leadership, not retreating from technical work. Top-down architecture owner. You want to personally own architecture decisions alone instead of enabling strong technical ownership within engineering teams. Engineers own architecture decisions - you participate, challenge, and sponsor the right investments. First-time people manager. You are entering engineering management for the first time and have not yet experienced leading teams through performance, hiring, and scaling challenges. We’re looking for someone who has already managed engineering teams successfully. Remote-only operator. You prefer fully remote work and don’t want to actively build relationships and culture in person with the team. We believe strong engineering leadership requires regular in-person collaboration and presence in Berlin. YOUR DAY TO DAY * You run weekly or bi-weekly 1:1s with each of your direct reports to support growth, alignment, and execution * You lead growth conversations and performance reviews - including development planning, quarterly check-ins, and calibration sessions with peers and the CTO * You work closely with PMs and senior engineers on cycle planning, scoping, prioritization, dependencies, and team capacity * You actively participate in architecture and tech debt discussions - challenging decisions, supporting strong technical direction, and sponsoring long-term investments * You play a key role in hiring - from interviewing and feedback to debriefs and closing strong candidates * You collaborate closely across squads with other Engineering Managers and the CTO to maintain alignment and execution quality * You handle difficult conversations directly and thoughtfully - including performance issues, conflicts, and compensation discussions, with support from the CTO where needed STAKEHOLDERS CTO: Your manager and partner on people development, calibration, technical direction Direct Reports: Engineers in your squad(s); you own their development, performance, and growth Product Manager(s): PMs own what and why; you own how (delivery) and who (people) People Ops: Partner on compensation and processes WHY PEOPLE CHOOSE US Mission that matters. Real impact on small businesses, not abstract metrics Funded with conviction. $16.5M raised with a strong trajectory toward profitability Modern stack. Kotlin/Quarkus, AWS, TypeScript/React/Next.js, and LangGraph for AI-powered features Squad-based organization. Each squad owns its domain end-to-end with real ownership and autonomy Product-led structure. PMs report directly to the CPO, keeping product strategy focused, consistent, and clearly prioritized Engineers own technical decisions. Engineering Managers participate, challenge, and sponsor decisions - but engineering judgment stays with the team Hybrid by design. Our Berlin office in Prenzlauer Berg is the center of gravity, with two work-from-home days as the standard setup Direct feedback culture. Honest, direct, and kind feedback is part of how we work together - in 1:1s, retrospectives, and everyday collaboration Two clear career tracks. We support both Individual Contributor growth (up to Staff level) and Engineering Management paths, with explicit reversibility between both Benefits & Culture * Choose between an Urban Sports Club/John Reed membership or a public transport/Dance subscription * Regular company and team events * Annual personal development budget of €500 for conferences, courses, books, career coaching, and more * An inclusive and exciting startup culture that enables fast professional and personal growth * Beautiful office in the heart of Berlin (Prenzlauer Allee 242) with free snacks, drinks, and top-notch equipment We want to build a community, not just a company. It’s important to us to create an environment where people genuinely enjoy spending time together - whether that’s through HYROX training, golfing, beer pong tournaments, running clubs, Warhammer, weekend activities, or whatever kind of community you’d like to help build here! We're looking for people with passion, grit, and integrity. You're encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't precisely match the description. At Superchat, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously. Relocating to Berlin? We support you with practical relocation help. You'll feel home in no time. We look forward to your application! 🙂 With your application you agree to our privacy policy.