Founding Engineer, Labs

About the role

Your main goal will be to meaningfully increase the probability that n8n wins in the AI-native future by rapidly identifying, validating, and building the next generation of AI-native products and experiences. You'll operate as part of a small, high-caliber skunkworks team focused on creating entirely new products from zero.

What you'll do

• Continuously explore emerging shifts in AI interfaces, orchestration, agents, and autonomy through hands-on experimentation and ecosystem research.
• Stay deeply connected to the AI ecosystem through founder networks, user conversations, Product Hunt, Reddit, GitHub, X, events, and emerging tooling.
• Rapidly prototype, validate, and launch new AI-native product ideas with minimal support and high autonomy.
• Operate with a highly scrappy, execution-first mindset across product, design, engineering, and go-to-market.
• Use structured thinking, research, and experimentation to evaluate what n8n should invest in over the next 1–3 years.
• Work closely with n8n's founder and Product leadership to workshop ideas, evaluate opportunities, and pressure-test assumptions.

What you'll need

• 0→1 product building experience; you've built and launched products from scratch, ideally in the AI space, and know how to move from idea to real-world validation quickly.
• AI-native product intuition; you deeply understand how AI is reshaping user behavior, workflows, interfaces, and product experiences.
• Hands-on execution; you're comfortable building, prototyping, experimenting, and operating with minimal structure or support.
• Product intuition and problem-solving; you combine strong product instincts with structured thinking and can quickly validate whether an idea is worth pursuing.
• Product vision; you're known for spotting non-obvious opportunities and thinking ahead of where the market is going.
• Speed and resourcefulness; you thrive in ambiguity, move fast, and know how to creatively unblock yourself to make progress.
• Collaboration and communication; you can workshop ideas with senior leaders, challenge assumptions thoughtfully, and bring others along through clear reasoning.

Nice to have

• Deep AI ecosystem immersion; you actively follow emerging products, models, startups, communities, and technical trends across the AI landscape.
• Founder experience; you've previously founded or been an early employee at a startup and understand what it takes to build under uncertainty.
• Technical breadth; you're comfortable using AI coding tools, low-code/no-code tooling, or building lightweight prototypes independently.

What they offer

• Competitive compensation.
• Ownership; you'll get a slice of n8n with equity.
• Work/life balance.
• Remote-first culture with direct exposure to company leadership.
• Visa sponsorship to Germany available; existing right to work required for other countries.