Founding Engineer

Want your code and decisions to make an immediate, company-wide impact? Are you ready to step into a role with high autonomy and no ceiling on your scope?

We're looking for a Software Engineer to take full ownership of Vendy's technical foundation.

About Vendy

Hundreds of millions of unused smartphones sit forgotten in drawers across Europe. At Vendy, we are building Europe’s first scalable collection network to change that.

Our automated buyback kiosks, placed in high-traffic grocery stores, allow consumers to sell their old phones and receive payment in seconds. Our mission is simple: recycling consumer electronics should be as effortless and habitual as returning deposit bottles.

Headquartered in Stockholm, we are an investor-backed startup built on disciplined, profitable growth. With our kiosks already live across Sweden, we are now focused on expanding our domestic fleet, launching into new European markets, and assembling our core team

About the Role

As our Founding Engineer at Vendy, you won't just write code, you will architect our platform from the ground up, bridge the gap between physical kiosk hardware and cloud infrastructure, and drive the technical decisions that shape our company's future. Working directly alongside the CEO and COO, you will set engineering standards, influence product strategy, and establish our engineering culture from day one.

You will own the technical foundation across the entire stack: from hardware integrations and consumer-facing kiosk interfaces to B2B client platforms and internal tools. To succeed, you’ll blend strong software engineering fundamentals with sharp product sense and an eye for intuitive UX, actively weaving AI into both our core product and everyday workflows.

In This Role, You Will

• Architect the full stack: Design, build, and maintain everything from kiosk hardware integrations and customer-facing interfaces to client-facing web portals and scalable backend services.

• Bridge hardware and software: Collaborate directly with our partners to engineer reliable, responsive, and secure solutions

• Drive product & AI adoption: Combine deep software engineering fundamentals with sharp product intuition, embedding modern AI capabilities into both our core platform and internal workflows.

• Set the technical bar: Define code quality standards, tooling, and system architecture while laying the foundation for future engineering hires.

What you bring

• Full-Stack Fluency: solid engineering experience and proven track record of building and scaling modern web and mobile applications, comfortably moving between backend architecture, APIs, and client-side interfaces as priorities demand.

• Strong Product Intuition: You don't just execute tickets; you design intuitive user flows and solve edge cases before they reach production.

• AI-Native Mindset: You actively leverage modern AI tools to accelerate your own development workflows and build smarter core product features.

• Ownership & Autonomy: You bring clarity and structure to open-ended technical challenges, auditing existing codebases, and making foundational architectural decisions.

• Curiosity & Problem-Solving: Quick to master new domains and apply emerging skills to resolve complex challenges.

• Language Proficiency: Fluent in Swedish and English.

Particularly relevant experience:

• Experience with Android development (especially dedicated devices, kiosk mode, or tablet apps).

• Past experience in scale-ups at the intersection of hardware and consumer software (e.g., micromobility, automated retail, smart lockers, parcel delivery).
  
  We prioritize long-term fit and potential over a flawless checklist. What we’re looking for is a versatile engineer with strong modern web development fundamentals and the curiosity and agility to learn quickly on the job.

What We Offer

• Founding Team Equity: Meaningful equity in a business that is already cash-flow positive and profitable

• True Technical Ownership: Ownership of architecture and technical decisions

• Tangible Impact: Your software will be used by people every day, diverting e-waste from landfills

• Small committed team: Work alongside the founders and take real ownership of product strategy and direction.

• Flexible Hybrid Setup: Flexible hybrid work setup based out of Stockholm.

Interested?

Submit your application by November 23th, 2026. We interview candidates continuously and will fill the position as soon as the right person is found.

The Process

1. Introductory Chat: Conversation with the recruiter.

2. Founder Deep Dive: Chat with founders Max and Ringo about Vendy’s vision, roadmap, and the opportunity.

3. Technical Discussion: A hands-on technical session with an experienced engineering leader to assess technical fit.

4. Final Team Alignment: Align on compensation, equity, and practicalities.

5. Offer

This job posting is published on behalf of Vendy by Ilmiö Talent Agency. For more information about the position, contact Ella Veijalainen (Talent Partner), ella@ilmiotalent.fi.

Information on the use of AI in recruitment:

We utilize AI to support our recruitment process, such as drafting job postings, pre-screening applications, and generating interview notes. AI does not make decisions independently; all selections and assessments are always made by a human. Applicant data is processed securely within the EU and is never used to train AI models.