Senior Backend Engineer @ Briink (AI + Climate Tech)

What we do

At Briink, we're helping accelerate the transition to a sustainable future by creating the next-generation of AI powered tools for sustainability and ESG teams on the frontlines of solving the climate crisis.

We believe that AI is the key to unlocking the future of sustainable business. With over 50 enterprise clients—including some of the world's largest firms—we’re already transforming how organizations manage their ESG data with AI. Our technology helps sustainability teams uncover actionable insights from unstructured data sources, making it easier to drive compliance, efficiency, and impact at scale.

Backed by over €7 million in capital, including a freshly closed funding round, and supported by leading venture capital funds, Briink is at the forefront of ESG innovation. We’re based at the heart of Europe’s AI revolution—the AI Campus in Berlin—where we are building a future where AI helps accelerate the transition to a sustainable future.

READ BEFORE APPLYING: Adding a short intro video () is mandatory for this position. We do this to get a better sense of candidates before continuing the process and find it really helps. Any application without a video will be rejected by default. Find instructions at the bottom of the post. No cover letter is required. Thank you!

Your role

As Briink’s Senior Backend Engineer, you will work as part of the product and engineering team to bring the cutting edge of LLMs to environmental and sustainability teams and help advance Briink’s mission to use AI to accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy! This includes both using your knowledge and experience as backend engineer to design and build new backend services, as well as helping ensure the scalability, robustness, and maintainability of our platform as it scales. Your main responsibilities will include:

• Ideate, design and scope new backend functionality in collaboration with the team to support new AI powered functionality and meet users needs
• Build new backend functionality and deliver on backend tasks, both as a individual contributor and while pair-programming with the team through to production and into the hands of our users
• Be the guardian of the backend services and ensure they are high quality, maintaining them and striving to improve their robustness as we scale
• Be a core member of the product and engineering team. Briink is a collaborative team and we really enjoy working together to build Briink into a successful company that has mission impact at scale. You will therefore work closely as part of a cross-discipline team spanning frontend, backend and AI systems, contributing your thoughts to a range of problems from across the stack as well as the wider business to help ensure all the work we do pushes in the same direction an helps achieve our mission!

Your profile

Technical Requirements

• Fluency in python: Including strong proficiency with base python as well as modern libraries and frameworks from backend engineering in python (e.g. fastAPI)
• Experience building APIs: Including experience building modern API services, strong understanding of REST principles, and preferably experience developing production-grade external-facing APIs (e.g. rate-limiting, versioning, client-SDKs, monitoring)
• Experience with Databases: Especially Postgres or other relational database systems, as well as ORMs like sqlalchemy and data migration tooling such as Alembic
• Experience with Cloud Services: Especially experience building scalable cloud infrastructure and deep familiarly with cloud services beyond compute (preferably in GCP), including experience designing cloud systems that can distribute heavy-processing jobs such as AI workloads
• Fluency in English (C1 level): With the ability to clearly communicate complex topics to diverse stakeholders from both technical and non-technical backgrounds

Technical Nice to haves

• AI/LLMs: Any hands-on experience with building or working with AI systems and especially LLM systems (either through foundation model providers or OS hosted models) and the challenges of these systems would be a major plus
• Distributed-systems: Expertise in distributed-systems patterns (e.g i/o task queue), make code run fast and safely in parallel; testing for speed, load, and failure cases
• Caching: Hands-on experience with caching layers (e.g Redis) and CDN strategies
• Integration test: Experience with setting up tests (e.g. integration tests)
• Observability: Experience with advanced observability (logging, metrics, tracing), especially with API services and cloud systems
• Domain driven design: Experience with domain-driven design for backend architecture
• Security: Any experience with AuthN/AuthZ (e.g OAuth 2.0, JWT) and secrets management as well as any experience with security/compliance methodologies, such as least-privilege principles
• Understanding or interest in sustainability: Including an interest in sustainability climate, or ESG topics and a desire to use your skills to help accelerate the climate transition Even if your experience doesn’t align precisely with all the criteria, we encourage you to apply! This is just our wishlist but many people miss out on opportunities because they feel they don’t fit every requirement—we believe in growth, not perfection!

The type of person we're looking for...

• Technically minded: You enjoy building software product and have experience solving technical challenges in real world settings. Any experience with building backend services for B2B SaaS products and/or AI LLM systems would be a major plus but we’re really looking for technically minded people who enjoy solving hard problems and want to apply their knowledge, experience and energy to building the next generation of AI tools for ESG and sustainability professionals
• Strong communicator and collaborator: You communicate proactively and in a structured way, considering trade-offs and keeping different stakeholders informed, with strong ability to communicate clearly, share ideas freely, and are not afraid to admit when we they don’t know something. You have clear communication, both verbal and written, in English, and can build strong internal and external relationships in order to collaborative effectively. You use your strong communication skills to develop clear documentation standards, architectural decision records and a rigorous code-review culture.
• Low-ego: You understand the importance of being kind and respectful, you practice active listening and help set the tone for healthy and productive communication. You genuinely appreciates others’ contributions and have a high level of trust in others and respects their expertise (while also being confident in their own expertise)
• Giving and receiving clear, helpful feedback - You are used to giving and receiving feedback and understand how to address issues in a productive and clear way. You give and receive feedback with care and clarity, and always with the intention of making each other better. It would be a major plus if you have any experience and/or enjoy mentoring
• Pragmatic attitude: You can adjust plans, priorities, or approaches when the context changes, whether it’s a product pivot, shifting timelines, or new team structures. You have high personal agency, drive and ability to figure things out, learn and iterate in a positive way and are able to “disagree and commit” where necessary to stay focused on achieving our goals. You are a ‘builder’ and aim to pragmatically integrate AI into real-world products, moving beyond research to create tangible, impactful solutions

What we offer

• Competitive Remuneration: As a core member of our team, you will receive a competitive salary and equity package, reflecting your ownership of Briink's success and your role in shaping Briink’s future
• Purpose-Driven Mission: ESG data has the power to create a more sustainable world, but today it presents more challenges than solutions. We believe AI can change that. Be part of the transition to an AI-powered, sustainable world
• Flexible Working: Our work philosophy is built on flexibility. While we do like to come to the office (in Berlin or London) to collaborate in person, this is a hybrid role with opportunities for some remote work within European time zones
• Trust and Ownership: At Briink, we empower you to own your projects with the option for growing into new roles. We believe in giving people purpose, mastery and autonomy of their craft and trust to drive your own initiatives
• Dynamic Work Environment: Based at the Merantix AI Campus, Berlin’s hub for AI innovation, you’ll work in a diverse, collaborative environment. With frequent events and opportunities for cross-company collaboration, you’ll be part of a thriving ecosystem of AI startups and experts
• Quarterly hackathons: We truly believe in the importance of curiosity and experimentation as both a learning opportunity and strategic advantage. We therefore have a learning budget to explore new technologies and regular hackathons to prototype new ideas

READ BEFORE APPLYING: Adding a short intro video () is mandatory for this position. We do this to get a better sense of candidates before continuing the process and find it really helps. Any application without a video will be rejected by default. Find instructions at the bottom of the post. No cover letter is required. Thank you!