Founder Associate

About YLAB

We build the AI we would give our own children.

Children are growing up with AI today. We make sure this AI sparks curiosity instead of addiction, is safe instead of data-hungry, and is built for children instead of adults.

We are YLAB, a small AI lab from Köln-Ehrenfeld. We develop software and hardware from one source, from the language model to the housing. Our first product is Onoo, a screen-free learning companion for children from age four. Onoo asks questions back, lets children guess, and thinks along. It has no camera and no display, shows no advertising and sells no data.

Why YLAB

Your work ends up in the child's room, not in a dashboard.

Software & Hardware: AI, app, firmware and device come together with us. You see how code becomes something a child picks up and holds.

You work on real open questions, for example how AI understands children's voices and explains the world to five-year-olds.

Tech, pedagogy and research sit at one table with us.

Honesty over glossy polish: we are building much of this for the first time. If that excites you, we should talk.

What we offer

• Responsibility from day one: You get real topics and problems instead of tickets, and your decisions carry weight.

• Top work equipment: You work with the setup and tools you need.

• Flexible further education: Conference, course or workshop – you tell us what moves you forward.

• Hybrid with heart: Remote when you need quiet, and in the office when we tinker together.

About the role

You work directly with the founders, you can't get any closer. Founder Associate at our company means: you are the firefighter. Wherever there is a fire, you are there first, whether it's an investor update, prototype logistics or the trade fair booth on Friday.

In return, you get the most honest crash course in company building we know: you sit in the decisions, not in the CC. What you see here in one year, others see in five.

Works full-time or as a working student. We don't care what your contract says, as long as you want responsibility.

How you can help us

• You clear away whatever slows the founders down: research, decision memos, offers, official mail, organization.

• You jump in wherever the fire is burning, from operations through events to support for our test families.

• You prepare decisions: pull numbers, sort options, write a clear recommendation.

• You build small processes and tools so the same fire doesn't break out twice.

• You keep the threads to partners and suppliers together when things need to move fast.

Get in touch if:

• You want to learn more in one year than others do in five.

• You get things done before anyone asks whether they're done.

• Chaos doesn't make you nervous. You turn it into lists.

• You write clearly and quickly, in German and in English.

• You are a generalist by conviction and learn new things faster than job profiles allow.

• You are still studying or have just graduated? That fits. Experience beats labels.

Probably not if: you need a job description that is accurate. Ours changes every week. Or if you prefer reporting a fire to putting it out.

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