Founder's Associate
Explicitly requires vibe coding and prototyping with LLMs and building AI agents and automation pipelines.
About the Role
Founder’s Associate at CEF AI working directly with the CEO to design and implement AI-driven operational systems and automations that reduce human dependency. The role focuses on architecting agent-based workflows, automating recruiting and operational processes, and shipping scalable tooling while being based in Berlin with hybrid in-office expectations.
Job Description
Role
CEF AI is hiring a Founder’s Associate to work directly with the CEO and founding team to design, build, and deploy AI-driven operational systems. This is a practitioner role focused on building automations, agents, and integrated systems that replace manual workflows and scale reliably.
Key Responsibilities
- Audit existing workflows across recruiting, operations, documentation, and coordination.
- Architect and implement AI agents and automation that handle repetitive and decision-based processes.
- Build interconnected systems and execution pipelines where tools communicate automatically via APIs.
- Ensure dashboards and observability reflect live system activity rather than manual reporting.
- Continuously optimize systems for speed, autonomy, and minimal human dependency.
- Transform recruitment into an automated, observable, and scalable product-like system (sourcing, enrichment, outreach, screening, routing, and stage updates).
- Translate strategic direction into system design, prototype quickly with AI tools, and ship solutions with ownership and speed.
Requirements
- 1–5 years in startups or high-performance environments.
- Proven experience building automations or AI-driven workflows (non-negotiable: you have already built automations).
- Comfortable vibe coding and prototyping with LLMs; experience using AI tools beyond basic prompting.
- Experience with APIs, automation tools, AI agents, and structured dashboards.
- Strong systems thinking; view processes as code and build execution pipelines.
- High agency, ability to ship imperfect systems and iterate, and clear written communication.
- Based in Berlin and available for hybrid / in-office work.
Benefits
- Real equity with meaningful ownership for early team members.
- Direct access to leadership; close collaboration with the CEO and founders.
- Opportunity to work on emerging problems around AI agents and real-time, sensitive data infrastructure.
- Small, high-output team with high ownership expectations.
- Autonomy with accountability; encouraged to propose and ship solutions.
- Hybrid work model with regular in-person collaboration in Berlin and San Francisco for focused sessions and hackathons.
Hiring Process
- Intro Call – alignment on expectations and team fit.
- CEO Interview – strategic discussion on vision and alignment.
- Reference Collection – speak with previous collaborators.
- Paid Trial (~5 days) – short, real-world engagement evaluated alongside offer discussions.