Comena builds AI agents for industrial distributors and manufacturers to automate their order processing from e-mail inbox to ERP. At distributors across the US and Germany alone, there are 4 million sales and procurement people stuck in manual workflows between inbox and ERP. We want to automate this work and liberate these people to work on more meaningful things.
We’re part of the YC S25 batch - the most selective batch in YC history. We recently raised a seed round from top Silicon Valley investors, and are serving customers across US and Germany.
About the roleAs a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will be one of our very first hires. In this role, you will combine strong technical abilities with excellent communication skills, working directly with customers to ensure they maximize the value of Comena’s AI platform. You will be involved in onboarding, implementation, and ongoing support, while also contributing to product development and innovation.
We move at startup speed: You’ll deploy features rapidly, learn on the fly, and help define our engineering culture and architecture.
Customer onboarding and implementation: Lead the full implementation lifecycle, including configuring, testing, and deploying AI agents. This involves integrating the platform with client data (e.g. product catalog) and systems (e.g. ERP) and understanding clients’ custom workflows. You'll also adapt backend logic and user interface to meet client requirements.
Collaboration: Work closely with the founders and customers to translate customer needs into technical solutions. Provide hands-on technical guidance and training to drive customer adoption and success.
Build full-stack features: Develop and ship product functionality using our Typescript frontend and Python backend. Take features from idea to production, including UI, business logic, and cloud services.
Has high agency, can operate independently and takes ownership
Has excellent communication skills (fluent English and German is a must) and enjoys working with non-technical stakeholders
Ships full-stack products quickly without compromising on code quality
Loves startups and running together to make something great happen
Wants to work very hard beyond traditional 9-5 hours
We work with Python (Django), Typescript, Postgres, and the latest LLMs.
Why join us?Your work will directly impact workers and companies around the world, to make global supply chains run smoothly.
We’re keeping our team deliberately small. We believe more people translate to more output if and only if each member is elite.
You’ll be working with cracked founders. Jiehua was the youngest software engineer at Google Zurich and the first sales hire at Lio (YC S23). Almo shipped code at Microsoft and Amazon AWS, and was the first engineer at Leaping AI (YC W25).
If you need any perks to feel productive, let us know and we’ll make it happen.
15 min intro call with Youssef
60 min technical interview with Almo
In-person co-working day
Offer
Skills Required
- Fluent English and German communication skills
- Strong technical abilities and excellent communication skills
- Ability to work independently, take ownership, and operate with high agency
- Ability to ship full-stack products quickly without compromising code quality
- Experience or ability to configure, test, deploy, and integrate AI agents with customer data and ERP systems
- Ability to work effectively with non-technical stakeholders and provide technical guidance and training
- Willingness to work beyond traditional 9-to-5 hours
- Interest in startups and fast-paced environments
What We Do
Comena builds AI agents for industrial distributors and manufacturers that automate order and quote processing from email inboxes to ERP systems. Its software reads purchase orders and RFQs in emails, PDFs, Excel files, and message bodies, extracts order details, matches products to SKUs, and sends validated orders into ERP platforms. The solution reduces manual data entry and lets sales teams focus on higher-value activities.
