✨ AI Insights & Summary
Passerelle is a groundbreaking AI consultancy founded on the principle of building bridges between technological advancement and improved working conditions. This Data & AI Engineer role is a unique chance to be an early, pivotal hire, shaping the technical foundation for both client-facing AI solutions and the company's own software products. You'll work with cutting-edge technologies to unlock complex data landscapes and build robust retrieval systems, all within a value-driven environment that champions good AI and good work. This is an ideal opportunity for a skilled engineer passionate about making a tangible, positive impact.
About Passerelle:
We are the Passerelle team, an AI consultancy founded in 2025 in Berlin, originating from the trade union sector. Our name says it all: Passerelle means bridge. We aim to build precisely this bridge to the future amidst the greatest transformation of the world of work – a bridge that enables true technological progress while simultaneously creating better working conditions. We do all this under the guiding principle: Good AI. Good Work.
Founded by experienced minds from the tech and consulting world as well as applied AI science, we combine strategic C-level foresight with deep technological expertise. We guide organizations and institutions on their path into an AI-shaped future, from strategic consulting and value-oriented technical implementation to sustainable adoption in operations. Alongside our transformation mandates, we also develop our own software products for digital sovereignty.
Your Tasks:
As a Data & AI Engineer, you will create the essential technical prerequisite for every successful AI application with us: a robust and structured data basis. Your focus will be on accessing historically grown, heterogeneous data landscapes and making them usable for modern AI applications, particularly retrieval systems.
As one of the first dedicated engineering hires, you will shape the development of our technical implementation capabilities – closely alongside our AI Solutions Architect. Your field of activity includes two areas: In our consulting mandates, you will analyze existing data architecture, identify gaps, and lay the foundation for the AI strategy. In parallel, you will develop the data and retrieval pipelines for our own AI infrastructure and software products.
Your Responsibilities
- Data Inventory & Maturity: Create data maps across heterogeneous inventories and assess the maturity of the digital foundation. Your gap analyses for identifiers and metadata will precisely show where the leverage lies.
- AI Data Ingestion (AI Enablement): 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: Develop metadata and identifier concepts, data models, and embedding pipelines, and build the retrieval foundation for RAG applications – including populating and operating vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Weaviate, pgvector). You will systematically assess the quality of this foundation.
- Data Protection & Sovereignty: Handle sensitive data responsibly and coordinate closely on AI governance, data protection, EU AI Act, and sovereignty requirements. You will consider data minimization and protectability from the outset.
- Pipelines for Internal Software Development: Prospectively build and operate the ingest and retrieval pipelines for proprietary software products – with a DataOps mindset (Versioning, Testing, Observability) and an understanding of agentic patterns, including Human-in-the-loop.
Qualifications:
- Solid Data Engineering Experience: Several years (3+ years) in Data Engineering or as a Data Platform Engineer – ideally in established, heterogeneous data landscapes. Excellent Python and SQL, as well as confident use of the Modern Data Stack (e.g., dbt, Airflow, Dagster) and ETL/ELT processes.
- AI Enablement: Practical experience with embedding pipelines and vector databases (e.g., Qdrant, Weaviate, Milvus, pgvector), an understanding of retrieval strategies, and experience in accessing unstructured data (e.g., LlamaParse, Unstructuredio).
- Data Protection Awareness: Experience in the responsible handling of sensitive and personal data, as well as knowledge of relevant requirements (especially GDPR, EU AI Act awareness).
- Pragmatism with Real Data: You are comfortable with incomplete, legacy data inventories and know that a usable data model is more valuable than a perfect one. You prioritize where it counts.
- Communication Skills & Values: You translate data realities understandably for non-technical stakeholders and communicate at eye level with business departments. Your German and English are fluent. You manage yourself, think solution-oriented, and share our values regarding a fair world of work tomorrow.
Nice to have: Experience with Knowledge Graphs, Semantic Layer, or Text-to-SQL; a strong DataOps mindset; enthusiasm for building PoCs.
Benefits:
- Real Impact & Values: A working environment that combines technological innovation with social responsibility and sustainable values. You will shape the AI transformation at the forefront according to European, democratic values.
- Visibility & Network: Insights into high-caliber mandates from politics, business, and trade unions.
- High Autonomy: Flat structures, a conscious 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 of vacation, a personal training budget, and state-of-the-art work equipment.
- Fair Compensation: A transparent salary band of €80,000 to €95,000 gross p.a. based on a 40-hour week (depending on experience).
- Long-term Perspective: Due to our agile startup phase, the position is initially limited to one year. As we are in sustainable development, a long-term collaboration is our clear goal. An extension or permanent employment is expressly sought with appropriate mandate and business development.
The core of our work is the social partnership-based shaping of the AI transformation – from the fair distribution of productivity gains and digital sovereignty to the question of how we build a just world of work tomorrow. We are passionate about these topics and want to not only think about this bridge to the future theoretically but also build it in practice.
For this, we are looking for smart minds with values and a can-do attitude, who think outside the box and are not afraid to question assumptions. Apply explicitly even if your CV doesn't perfectly match the description – your perspective and inner drive count far more to us than a complete profile. If you're eager to co-shape a young company and leave your mark on the future of work: Join us!