I built an MVP, signed partners, invested €100k myself. Now looking for a Founding Engineer (EU, consumer platform)
Hi, I’ve been building a new venture over the past 6 months to solve a painfully common problem: Helping people move to a new country or set up a home in a new country without drowning in admin (think: internet, utilities, insurance, telecom, tax, ID and much more. Everything we all hate dealing with and gets exponentially harder in a new country.)
It’s a messy, unsexy problem, which is exactly why it’s such a good one.
Where the company is today:
- MVP is live (Nuxt 3 + Laravel/PHP, AWS)
- Closed beta with real users
- Multiple service partners signed
- Multiple small and medium sized distribution partnerships signed (real-estate agencies)
- Pilot with a large distribution partner signed (real-estate agency chain)
- Three big distribution partnerships in advanced discussions (prestige consumer brands you've seen before)
- We know the next 2–3 core features needed for full public launch
- Outsourced dev team (who built the product) available for 1h/day for onboarding + support
- Strong Product Design freelancer working 5-7h/week (I had to rotate 5 designers before I found her)
- Professional QA person available 2h/day
- €75k in the bank to take us from MVP → early traction over the next 4–5 months before raising
I’ve personally invested ~€100k from a previous company I co-founded 10 years ago (still running ~€2M/yr today)
I’ve recently stepped out operationally from that business and gone all-in on this. This is what I’m building the next decade around.
About me:
I’m a repeat founder with strengths in product, partnerships, and distribution. I’ve built companies before, scaled teams, signed enterprise partnerships, sold one (small) business, own an existing and profitable business, and handled the non-code side end-to-end. I’m based in Southern Europe (our core market) and prefer a Founding Engineer in Europe for timezone alignment.
Who I’m looking for:
A full-stack engineer who’s shipped consumer products, integrated multiple APIs, and enjoys architecting systems that actually get used by real people. Someone who wants ownership, speed, and the satisfaction of building something that solves an unavoidable real-world problem. First six months = 95% writing code. After that, we'll build a small team around you and you will likely spend some more time on architecture, product strategy and other fun stuff next to coding. Ideally, you have relocated, moved or studied abroad during some time of your life. (not a dealbreaker though).
What I can offer:
- Meaningful equity (4-8%) depending on seniority & intensity
- Modest salary 3.5 to 4k eur/m (I’m taking €0 the first year) that will grow to market rate once we raised our first round
- Real ownership in a fast-moving consumer product with early traction, capital invested, and distribution already lining up
- A chance to shape the core product, tech, and culture from the moment before we accelerate
If this resonates, DM me with some info about your background and why you found this interesting. Happy to answer any questions in thread or in DMs.
For me, my entire entrepreneurial journey has led up to this, this is the big one and I would love to find our Founding Engineer here on Indiehackers. Let's talk!
Hey Simon,
Quick question are you currently looking to get help with [specific task] this week or next, or is hiring lower priority right now?
Hey Simon — this really resonates with me.
I’ve worked across full‑stack engineering and product delivery for years, and I’m especially drawn to problems that are messy, operationally complex, and genuinely improve people’s lives. What you’re building hits that intersection perfectly — real users, real partnerships, real traction, and a founder who’s clearly all‑in.
My background includes shipping consumer-facing products end‑to‑end, integrating external APIs, and owning architecture and infrastructure decisions in fast-moving environments. I enjoy the early-stage grind where 95% of the work is writing code and the remaining 5% is making smart decisions that set the foundation for scale.
I’ve also lived abroad, so the pain you’re solving is very familiar — and very real.
I’d love to explore whether I could be the Founding Engineer you’re looking for.
You can connect with me at this Linkedin Profile: sushangautam
Happy to continue the conversation in DMs if this sounds like a potential fit.
Hi Simon, great traction so far — live MVP, real users, and partnerships already signed is impressive.
I’m a full-stack engineer experienced with React/Next.js + back end services (e.g., Node/PHP/APIs/AWS) and have built consumer features from MVP to launch. I enjoy solving messy, real-world problems like this — especially when it boils down to shipping value early.
I’m confident I can jump into the codebase and start contributing quickly. Happy to DM more about my background or hop on a quick call if that works for you.
Hi Simon,
Sounds like an interesting project, I relocated from Belgium to Taiwan myself, so the “moving countries and dealing with admin” pain is very real to me.
I previously joined a young startup with a dev-shop prototype and quickly became the main backend go-to, designing and shipping new features and helping take the product through a successful launch. My role also included screening, onboarding and coaching new hires so that experience might come in handy as well.
More recently I built and shipped my own consumer SaaS from scratch. That experience really made me appreciate the value of strong distribution, so it's great to see you already seem to have that base covered!
Happy to go on a call to see if there's a fit and maybe proceed with a short trial right away. Contact me at alex at longyan dot io if interested
Hey,
Saw your Indie Hackers post about the founding engineer role—love the unsexy but essential problem you're solving with relocation admin. I've dealt with similar chaos building MVPs abroad-facing (e.g., ed-fintech for global users), and your traction (beta users, signed partners, pilot) screams real momentum.
I'm Yash, a full-stack engineer based in India (happy to align on EU timezones—I've managed remote collabs with 3-4 hour offsets). Strengths: Shipping consumer products end-to-end, like Zarky AI (AI video gen MVP on FastAPI/Next.js/AWS, handling heavy pipelines for US startups) and Siply (live ed-fintech for 150+ users with React/Supabase). Integrated tons of APIs (Stripe billing, Replicate AI, FFmpeg video), architected scalable infra (EC2/SQS/Lambda/Fargate for 250+ concurrent loads), and owned product decisions from idea to launch.
Excited by the 95% coding focus initially, then scaling to architecture/product, mirrors how I partner on early-stage builds.
Let's chat
Best,
Yash Raikar
+91 70397 25352
Hi Simon. The 'unsexy' problems are usually the only ones worth solving.
I’m a 15-year Senior Engineer/Architect based in Ukraine (EU time), with over 7 years of Laravel and APIs expertise.
I see you're transitioning from an outsourced team. That’s a critical phase. I have significant experience auditing and refactoring inherited codebases while keeping scalability and feature velocity high.
Let’s chat. I’d love to review the current architecture and see if we align.
[vector42.profile at gmail]
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