Founding Engineer

You’ll be Volta’s technical leader in Paris. You’ll be the technical voice of the company, run the tech kickoff, build the first integrations yourself, and then hire and grow the FDE squad that comes after you. You report directly to the CTO, based in Italy. Think of it as the CTO role, localised to the French market: hands-on at the start, product-shaping as it scales. Key responsibilities: Lead engineering in France , hands‑on from day one — a leadership role where the leader still ships code Start with Connect : design and build the Python integrations connecting Volta to client systems, owning the full lifecycle from spec to go‑live Be Volta’s technical voice in France — join presales conversations to explain our architecture, data flows, and security/compliance posture to client CTOs, IT and security teams; run technical kickoffs Own the customer relationship as the technical counterpart, from first call through go‑live and beyond Go wide on the product once Connect is under control — real say in what we build for the French market, and the licence to build it yourself Grow the team — hire, onboard and lead the engineers who follow; define how the team works in France Must have:5+ years building backend systems in modern Python for production‑critical workloads, and still hands‑on today — not someone who’s moved into pure managementExperience integrating enterprise systems you didn’t own and couldn’t change (ERP, WMS, PIM, EDI, or other legacy enterprise systems) — missing sandboxes, weak documentation, a vendor between you and the APIProduct engineering experience, not just integrations or pipelines — you’ve built core or user‑facing product tooStrong SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server, or Oracle) and comfort with messy, real‑world dataStrong system design and distributed systems knowledge — you can design components and backend patterns that scale without scaling the team linearly, and defend those choices to a client’s architectsReal client exposure — you’ve run technical conversations with enterprise customers, not just internal stakeholders, and can run a kickoff or handle a security questionnaire in FrenchSome leadership history — led a small team, a squad, or been the technical anchor others were hired around; wants to build and lead a team while still writing codeAppetite to contribute across the product, not just integrations — opinions about where Volta should go in France, and the drive to go build themFluent French and English, with excellent technical communication in bothHigh autonomy and ownership — comfortable reporting to a CTO based in another country, escalating early rather than absorbing problems silently, and juggling presales, delivery, and hiring without dropping deliveryNice to have:Experience in a Tech or startup environmentERP integration experience specificallyFamiliarity with wholesale, distribution, or order management environmentsConsulting or enterprise integration backgroundExperience as a first hire in a country, or in an office remote from HQHas hired and onboarded engineers beforeA builder mentality — defaults to shipping over delegating, and thrives on the adaptability a fast‑moving startup demands #J-18808-Ljbffr Volta software