Private Equity Tech - Founding Product Engineer

PEX is a very early startup building software that helps private-market investors understand company valuations and explore how different scenarios affect their portfolios. We combine document processing, AI, and financial models in a product that makes complex information easier to work with.

We’re looking for an AI-savvy product engineer to take ownership of building and running that product, working directly with the founder.

The founder has built the initial codebase. You’ll inherit it, understand what works and what needs attention, and take responsibility for moving it forward. There is existing software to build on, alongside rough edges and foundations that need strengthening.

Initially, you’ll be the primary hands-on engineer across the application: user interface, backend, AI integrations, data flows, and deployment. Most of your time will be spent writing code, debugging, and shipping. You should be comfortable getting the product into users’ hands with the resources we have today.

The day-to-day work is founding product engineering: As the company develops, there may be an opportunity to hire and lead a small engineering team.

• Build a product people can use. Turn agreed priorities into complete features, from backend behavior to clear, responsive interfaces. Care about the whole workflow, including loading states, errors, and how users understand the results.
  

• Own the codebase. Get the application running, understand its architecture, fix fragile areas, and make practical decisions about what to keep, simplify, or refactor while continuing to deliver.
  

• Make the foundations dependable. Own APIs, data storage, background jobs, and integrations. Make sure the information shown to users is consistent and that incorrect outputs can be traced and corrected.
  

• Ship and operate the software. Own deployment, configuration, automated checks, monitoring, and recovery when something breaks. Keep infrastructure and AI costs proportionate to the stage of the business.
  

• Use AI effectively. Use AI coding tools to accelerate development while reviewing and validating their output. Build reliable AI-powered workflows with structured outputs, evaluation, and sensible handling of failures.

• Bring lightweight engineering discipline. Break work into manageable deliveries, maintain a short prioritized backlog, define what “done” means, and document the decisions and setup others will need. Surface blockers and trade-offs early.
  

You’ll work with the founder on priorities and the financial domain. Your responsibility is to turn those priorities and models into working product experiences.
Deep quantitative research is a separate discipline; finance expertise is helpful but is not a prerequisite for this role.

• You have shipped and maintained a full-stack product and can explain the parts you personally owned, including what happened after launch.
  

• You are comfortable working across frontend and backend technology: from the user interface through services and data to production deployment.
  

• You have practical experience integrating LLMs into software and can explain how you check whether the output is useful and reliable.
  

• You use AI development tools with judgment: you can understand, debug, and take responsibility for the code you ship.
  

• You can work in an existing, imperfect codebase and improve it incrementally.
  

• You organize your own work. Given a product objective, you can clarify what matters, propose a delivery plan, and follow through without the founder having to assign every task.
  

• You enjoy the breadth and uncertainty of a very early startup, and you bring care to both the user experience and the engineering underneath it.
  

Experience as a founding engineer, an early startup engineer, or a hands-on technical lead would fit well. We value evidence of shipping and ownership over a particular degree or previous title.

Together, we’ll set priorities after reviewing the codebase. The outcomes we’re aiming for are:

• You can develop, debug, and deploy the application independently, with a documented setup and release process.
  

• The most important user workflow works reliably from beginning to end, with critical failures covered by appropriate tests or AI evaluations.
  

• You have shipped meaningful product improvements while addressing the foundations most likely to hold us back.
  

• We have a simple, visible delivery rhythm: clear priorities, regular working demos, and early discussion of risks.
  

• Routine engineering delivery no longer depends on the founder coordinating each step.
  

The role is 100% on-site in Zürich.

You’ll work directly with the founder, see the impact of what you build, and have substantial responsibility for how the product is implemented and delivered. This is an opportunity to help shape a company’s engineering foundations from its earliest stage.

Share a short introduction and one or two examples of products you helped ship. Tell us what you personally built, how you used AI, and what you owned in production.