Senior Software Engineer (Backend) (m/w/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?

ABOUT ICE SERVICES ICE Services is a music technology company built by rightsholders, for rightsholders. We simplify the complexities of the music royalty chain through an innovative suite of licensing, processing, and copyright services, enabling our customers to accurately and efficiently compensate songwriters and composers for the use of their works.  A joint venture between PRS, STIM, and GEMA, ICE Services is the result of a big vision for the industry that harnesses years of combined experience in the multi-territory music market. Serving over 330,000 rightsholders and leveraging a copyright database comprising 55 million musical works, ICE Services’ operations touch 250+ territories to distribute more than €1bn in royalties per year, with a total of over €5bn distributed to date.   We’re based in the UK, Germany, and Sweden.     ABOUT THE ROLE As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in the development and enhancement of our new copyright product. Your responsibilities will include hands-on product engineering, working with a team of talented product engineers, designing and implementing complex systems, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver exceptional products to our customers. If you thrive in a collaborative environment and possess a keen eye for detail, this is an excellent opportunity to contribute to groundbreaking projects and shape the future of the ICE Services' product portfolio. We’re building a strong foundation for our company on these products. Bringing the technical expertise in-house and being part of a modern, product-centric technology organisation that works based on agile methodologies and principles are key pillars of our technology strategy. We’re creating the kind of teams talked about in Inspired by Marty Cagan, and following principles in Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren. TECHNOLOGY STACK Our copyright product is primarily running in AWS with the following technologies: • Java SpringBoot Microservices • DynamoDB • OpenSearch • Postgres • S3 • Kinesis • SNS • SQS • Docker / ECS / EKS • Serverless frameworks   KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: * Architect and Implement: Work as part of a product engineering team to design and implement complex software systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance. * Collaboration: Collaborate with product managers and cross-functional teams to define product requirements and create comprehensive technical specifications. * Code Reviews: Conduct thorough code reviews, providing constructive feedback to maintain code quality and adherence to best practices. * Technical Ownership: Take ownership of critical technical decisions and provide expert guidance in selecting appropriate technologies and tools. * Development Practices: Champion best development practices, includ- ing code documentation, unit testing, and version control. * Risk Mitigation: Identify and mitigate technical risks, proactively ad- dressing potential challenges throughout the product development lifecycle. * Industry Trends: Stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and advancements, integrating new technologies to enhance product offerings and maintain a competitive edge. * AI-Assisted Engineering: Embrace AI-powered tools (e.g., coding assistants, automated testing, intelligent search) as productivity multipliers, and explore opportunities where AI can enhance our copyright products. * Mentoring: Mentor and coach junior engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional growth.   REQUIREMENTS AND QUALIFICATIONS: * Experience: 5 to 7 years of relevant experience in product engineering. Previous experience in a senior or lead engineering role is highly preferred. * Technical Expertise: Demonstrated expertise in programming languages such as Java alongside proficiencies in web technologies, database management, and cloud platforms. * Proven Track Record: A history of designing, developing, and delivering successful software products from concept to launch. * Collaboration Skills: Ability to work collaboratively with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to translate product requirements into technical solutions. * Communication Skills: Clear and effective communication skills, both written and verbal, to convey technical concepts to technical and non-technical audiences alike. * Innovation: A passion for innovation, including openness to leveraging AI-powered tools and technologies in daily engineering work. Commitment to staying abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends. * Quality Focus: A strong commitment to code quality, unit testing, and other best practices in software engineering. * Adaptability: The ability to thrive in a fast-paced and rapidly evolving environment, with a willingness to take on new challenges and responsibilities. * Problem-Solving: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills to resolve complex technical challenges.   WHAT WE OFFER: * Competitive local benefits based on your location * We promote flexible working regarding time and/or place * Both mental and physical health initiatives * Corporate pension scheme  * Comprehensive training and development opportunities  * Industry insider events, team socials and company events * Enhanced holiday allowance  We welcome candidates from all backgrounds, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and any other protected characteristic.  We are committed to making all stages of our recruitment process accessible to candidates with disabilities. Please speak to our recruitment team and we will work with you to make reasonable adjustments to ensure you can perform at your best throughout your application.