AI Solutions Architect (m/w/d)

About Passerelle

Passerelle is an AI consultancy founded in 2025 in Berlin, emerging from the union movement. Our name is our mission: we build bridges into the future during the greatest transformation of the working world — enabling genuine technological progress while creating better working conditions. Our guiding principle is: Gute KI. Gute Arbeit. (Good AI. Good Work.)

Founded by experienced leaders from tech, consulting, and applied AI science, we combine strategic C-level foresight with deep technological expertise. We guide organizations and institutions on their journey into an AI-driven future, from strategic consulting through values-oriented technical implementation to sustainable adoption in operations. Beyond transformation mandates, we also develop our own software products for digital sovereignty.

The Role: AI Solutions Architect

You hold a key position as the critical bridge between our strategic consulting and technological implementation. As one of our first dedicated engineering hires, you shape the buildout of our technical execution capabilities and lay the technical foundation for client projects and product development, with the clear perspective of building and strategically leading an engineering team as the company grows.

In our young organization, there is no rigid siloization. Your role lives through dynamic distribution that evolves with us:

Architektur & Prototyping (~50%)

• Systemarchitektur: Design scalable end-to-end architectures for AI applications (e.g. RAG pipelines, multi-agent systems) and plan their integration into existing IT landscapes.
• Functional Prototypes (PoCs): Conceive and build prototypes yourself to make complex use cases tangible and convince client stakeholder groups.
• Product Development: Shape the technical concept and logical structure of our own software tools for Gute Arbeit.

Technical Consulting & Delivery (~30%)

• Technology Evaluation: Assess tech stacks independently (e.g. commercial APIs vs. self-hosted open source, EU hosting vs. hyperscalers) and make trade-offs understandable for decision-makers.
• Interface & Client Stewardship: Take the technical lead in projects, translate business requirements into blueprints and steer communication with clients' internal IT departments.
• LLMOps & Governance: Own concepts for testing, monitoring and guardrails, anchoring them — together with ethics and legal expertise — according to the Compliance by Design principle (EU AI Act, data protection).

Pre-Sales & Tech Strategy (~20%)

• Sales Enablement & Scoping: Accompany the founding team in pitches, translate customer wishes into feasible tech concepts and define the boundaries of what we can and want to deliver technologically.
• Make-or-Buy Decisions: Maintain overview of our technical capability. Make well-founded decisions on when we develop solutions in-house, when we purchase external services or tools, and at what point internal team expansion becomes strategically necessary.
• Tech Leadership as Perspective: Be the technical sparring partner for the founding team and shape hiring and structure of our future engineering team as the company grows.

Requirements

Foundational Experience: At least 5 years in software engineering, systems architecture or data/ML engineering, with documented practical experience with productive GenAI systems.

Current AI Practice & Frameworks: Documented, practical experience with productive GenAI deployment (LLMs, RAG architectures, agentic patterns) in recent years. You are absolutely confident with Python and modern frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, LangGraph and MCP.

Hands-on Builder (T-shaped): You design architectures not just on whiteboards, but build functioning prototypes yourself. You are familiar with cloud infrastructures (AWS, Azure, GCP) as well as on-premise setups and bring a conscious commitment to digital sovereignty.

Consulting Strength & Communication Skills: You have experience in mandate-based work or close client collaboration. You can translate complex deep-tech topics for C-level, departments and stakeholder groups in an understandable way. You speak German and English at business level.

Strategic Thinking: You think beyond pure code. You have a sense for feasibility, can assess resources correctly and are keen to eventually lead a growing engineering team.

Mindset: Genuine inner drive for our guiding principle "Gute KI. Gute Arbeit.", digital sovereignty, fair distribution of productivity gains and co-determination.

Nice to Have: Experience in regulated or sensitive contexts; deeper MLOps experience; experience in pre-sales / solution strategy for pitches; open-source contributions or relevant publications.

Benefits

• Real Impact & Values: A work environment that combines technological innovation with social responsibility and sustainable values. You shape the AI transformation at the forefront according to European democratic values.
• Visibility & Network: Mandates with top stakeholders from politics, business and unions, high personal visibility.
• High Autonomy: Flat structures, deliberate absence of micromanagement and genuine responsibility for your accounts and topics.
• Flexible Setup: Remote-first with a core team in Berlin and flexible working hours that fit your life.
• Standards: 30 days vacation, dedicated professional development budget and state-of-the-art work equipment.
• Fair Compensation: A transparent salary band of €90,000 to €110,000 gross p.a. on the basis of a 40-hour week (depending on experience).
• Long-term Perspective: The position is initially fixed-term for one year due to our agile startup phase. As we build sustainably, long-term collaboration is our clear goal. Conversion to permanent employment is explicitly pursued with corresponding business development.

About Us

The core of our work is socially co-determined shaping of the AI transformation — from fair distribution of productivity gains through digital sovereignty to the question of how we build a just working world tomorrow. We are passionate about these topics and want to think through this bridge into the future not just theoretically, but build it practically.

For this we seek bright minds with conviction and a can-do attitude, who think around corners and are not afraid to question assumptions. Apply explicitly even if your CV does not match the description perfectly — for us your perspective and inner drive count far more than a flawless profile. If you are keen to shape a young company and put your mark on the future of work: Join us!