Data & AI Engineer (m/w/d)

We are looking for an experienced developer, a team that bridges the gap between technology and social responsibility. Our name is program: Passerelle means bridge. We are committed to building a bridge into the future, enabling genuine technological progress while creating better working conditions. All this we do under the motto: Good AI. Good work.

Founded by experienced heads from the tech and consulting world as well as applied AI science, we combine strategic C-level foresight with deep technical expertise. We accompany organizations and institutions on their path into an AI-driven future, from strategic consulting to value-oriented technical implementation and sustainable adoption in operation. Besides our transformation mandates, we also develop our own software products for digital sovereignty.

Aufgaben

As a Data & AI Engineer, you will create the necessary technical foundation for every successful AI deployment: a reliable and structured data basis. Your focus lies on unlocking historically grown, heterogeneous data landscapes and making them usable for modern AI applications, especially retrieval systems.

As one of our first dedicated engineering hires, you will establish the setup of our technical implementation force with – closely alongside our AI Solutions Architect. Your field of activity includes two areas: In our consulting mandates, you analyze the existing data architecture, identify gaps, and lay the foundation for the AI strategy. Parallel to this, you develop the data and retrieval pipelines for our own KI infrastructure and software products.

**
Your tasks**

• Data inventory & maturity: You create data land maps across heterogeneous datasets and evaluate the maturity of the digital foundation. Your gap analyses to identifiers and metadata show precisely where the lever lies.
• Ai Data Ingestion (KI-Enablement): You unlock unstructured data sources (PDFs, reports, publications) for use in AI systems – text extraction, chunking strategies, metadata generation, e.g., with tools like LlamaParse or Unstructuredio.
• Data foundation & Retrieval: You develop metadata and identifier concepts, data models, and embedding pipelines and build the retrieval groundwork for RAG applications – including filling and operating vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Weaviate, pgvector). The quality of this foundation you evaluate systematically.
• Data protection & Sovereignty: You handle sensitive data responsibly and align yourself closely with AI governance, data protection, EU AI Act, and sovereignty requirements. Data parsimony and protectability you think from the start.
• Pipelines for internal software development: You build and operate prospective ingest and retrieval pipelines for our own software products – with DataOps mindset (versioning, testing, observability) and an understanding of agentive patterns including human-in-the-loop.

Qualification

• Fundamental data engineering experience: Several years (3+ years) in data engineering or as a data platform engineer – ideally in grown, heterogeneous data landscapes. Excellent Python and SQL skills, as well as safe handling of the modern data stack (e.g., dbt, Airflow, Dagster) and ETL/ELT processes.
• KI-Enablement: Practical experience with embedding pipelines and vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Weaviate, Milvus, pgvector), a sense for retrieval strategies, and experience with unlocking unstructured data (e.g., LlamaParse, Unstructuredio).
• Data protection awareness: Experience in handling sensitive and personal data responsibly, as well as knowledge of relevant requirements (in particular DSGVO, EU AI Act Awareness).
• Pragmatism in real-world data landscape: You feel at home in incomplete, grown data sets and know that a usable data model is more valuable than a perfect one. You prioritize where it counts.
• Communication strength & attitude: You translate the data reality into understandable language for non-technical stakeholders and communicate on eye level with departments. Your German and English are negotiable. You steer yourself, think solution-oriented, and share our values around a fair working world of tomorrow.

Schön, if you bring along: Experience with Knowledge Graphs, Semantic Layer or Text-to-SQL; developed DataOps mindset; enthusiasm for building PoCs

Benefits

• Genuine impact & attitude: A work environment that connects technological innovation with social responsibility and sustainable values. You shape the AI transformation at the forefront, driven by European, democratic values.
• Vision & network: Insights into high-profile mandates from politics, economy, and labor unions
• High autonomy: Flat structures, conscious absence of micromanagement, and genuine responsibility for your accounts and themes
• Flexible setup: Remote-first with a core team in Berlin, as well as flexible working hours that fit your life.
• Standards: 30 days' vacation, an own further education budget, and modern work equipment
• Fair compensation: A transparent salary range of €80,000 to €95,000 gross per annum based on a 40-hour week (depending on experience)

* Long-term perspective: The position is initially limited to one year due to our agile startup phase. As we are building sustainably, long-term cooperation is our clear goal. A prolongation or unbinding will be explicitly aimed at when corresponding mandate and business development occur.

The core of our work is the socially partnership-based shaping of the AI transformation - from fair distribution of productivity gains to digital sovereignty and the question of how we build a fair working world of tomorrow. We burn for these themes and want to build this bridge into the future not only theoretically but practically.

For that, we are looking for clever heads with attitude and can-do attitude who think outside the box and don't hesitate to question assumptions. Apply explicitly even if your CV is not perfect - for us, your perspective and inner drive count far more than a flawless profile. If you're interested in shaping a young company and stamping your mark on the future of work: Join us!