At Superchat, we’re rebuilding how businesses talk to their customers. The phone call, the contact form, the support ticket: all of it is being replaced by messaging and AI. We’re building the platform that runs underneath.
Founded in 2020, Superchat has become the platform of choice for 10,000+ businesses worldwide, from globally recognized brands like Allianz, Auto1, Enpal, Danone, and GASAG to the small businesses, dental practices, and one-person startups that need to look bigger than they are. Today, millions of messages flow through Superchat every single day.
We started as a unified inbox: one place for every channel a customer might pick, including WhatsApp, email, SMS, and Instagram. Then ChatGPT happened, and the second chapter began: AI agents that respond across chat, email, and voice at the quality of the best human teams.
We’re 100 people, profitable, and have raised €18M in funding (last round 4.5 years ago; we’ve been growing on our own money since). We’re headquartered in Berlin.
We are hiring a backend-leaning Tech Lead to lead a team of 3–4 engineers and own the technology for a part of Superchat’s product.
This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll spend roughly half your time designing and building software and the other half enabling your team to perform at its best. You’ll work directly on architecture, development, and important projects while creating the clarity, feedback, and environment your engineers need to deliver an excellent product.
Who We Want
- A strong, current backend engineer: You bring 3+ years of experience as a Senior or Staff Engineer and remain deeply involved in software development. You are comfortable owning, designing, and building crucial parts of production systems.
- Experienced with the JVM ecosystem: You have substantial experience with Java or another JVM language. Kotlin and AWS experience are a plus, since our backend runs on Kotlin/Quarkus.
- Ready to lead people: You may already have worked in a hybrid Tech Lead role, been an Engineering Manager for a short time, or be taking your first steps in people leadership after successfully owning projects and architecture. What matters is that you genuinely want to help people grow.
- Strong at delivery: You know how to turn product goals into reality. You are used to working in fast-paced startups and are driven to increase delivery velocity.
- Product-minded: You care about solving customers’ problems. You engage with product decisions, challenge assumptions constructively, and find pragmatic solutions to build things in a lean way.
- Clear communicator: You can explain complex technical concepts in detail to engineers and in an understandable way to non-technical stakeholders. You create alignment and motivate people.
- Excited about AI-assisted development: You are already using AI in your development workflow and are eager to explore how it can improve engineering speed, quality, and the way teams work.
Who We Don’t Want
- Pure people manager: You no longer want to work directly on software. This role requires meaningful, ongoing involvement in architecture, implementation, code reviews, and technical problem-solving.
- Hero engineer: You want to make every important technical decision yourself or become the team’s bottleneck. Your job is to raise the effectiveness of the whole team, not to be the only person who can solve difficult problems.
- Pure delivery manager: You treat engineering as a ticketing operation focused only on timelines and task tracking instead of product quality, technical health, and team growth. We need engineering leaders, not project coordinators.
- Remote-only operator: You prefer fully remote work and don’t want to actively build relationships and culture in person with the team. We believe strong engineering leadership requires regular in-person collaboration and presence in Berlin.
Your Day-to-Day
- Spend approximately 50% of your time contributing directly to architecture, development, code reviews, and important technical projects.
- Lead a team of 3–4 engineers and take responsibility for its effectiveness, technical quality, and delivery.
- Work closely with your Product Manager to understand customer problems, shape solutions, scope projects, and set priorities.
- Establish clear technical direction while enabling engineers to own decisions and develop their judgment.
- Run regular 1:1s, give actionable feedback, and support each engineer’s development and performance.
- Remove blockers, manage dependencies, and help the team identify delivery risks early.
- Improve engineering practices and explore effective uses of AI throughout the software development lifecycle.
- Contribute to hiring through technical interviews, structured feedback, and candidate conversations.
Stakeholders
- Director of Engineering: Your manager and partner on people development, calibration, and processes.
- Direct Reports: Engineers on your team. You own their development, performance, and growth.
- Product Manager: Product Managers own the what and why; you own the how (delivery) and who (people).
- CTO and CPO: We are a lean organization with a flat hierarchy. You’ll regularly discuss architectural direction with the CTO and product direction with the CPO.
Why People Choose Us
- Mission that matters: Make a real impact on small businesses, not just abstract metrics.
- Funded with conviction: €18M raised and profitable.
- Modern stack: Kotlin/Quarkus, AWS, TypeScript/React/Next.js, and LangGraph for AI-powered features.
- Squad-based organization: Each squad owns its domain end-to-end, with genuine ownership and autonomy.
- Two clear career tracks: We support both individual contributor growth (up to Staff level) and management paths, with explicit reversibility between the two. Tech Lead is the first level of management while remaining highly hands-on.
- Product-led structure: Product Managers report directly to the CPO, keeping product strategy focused, consistent, and clearly prioritized.
- Hybrid by design: Our Berlin office in Prenzlauer Berg is the center of gravity, with two work-from-home days as the standard setup.
- Direct feedback culture: Honest, direct, and kind feedback is part of how we work together—in 1:1s, retrospectives, and everyday collaboration.
Benefits & Culture
- Choose between an Urban Sports Club/John Reed membership or a public transport/Dance subscription.
- Enjoy regular company and team events.
- Receive an annual personal development budget of €500 for conferences, courses, books, career coaching, and more.
- Be part of an inclusive and exciting startup culture that enables fast professional and personal growth.
- Work from our beautiful office in the heart of Berlin (Prenzlauer Allee 242), with free snacks, drinks, and top-notch equipment.
Building a Community, Not Just a Company
We want to build a community, not just a company.
It’s important to us to create an environment where people genuinely enjoy spending time together—whether that’s through HYROX training, golfing, beer pong tournaments, running clubs, Warhammer, weekend activities, or whatever kind of community you’d like to help build here!
Who We Are Looking For
We’re looking for people with passion, grit, and integrity. You’re encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn’t precisely match the description. At Superchat, we welcome diverse perspectives and people who think rigorously.
Relocating to Berlin? We support you with practical relocation assistance. You’ll feel at home in no time.
We look forward to your application! 🙂
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