Senior Full-stack Engineer

About Ontologize

At Ontologize, we teach people to become Forward Deployed Engineers. We are the sole training partner for Palantir Technologies. We have directly taught thousands of people across more than 250 Palantir customers and partners — and many tens of thousands more via our YouTube channel.

We find teaching very fulfilling, and are honored to be trusted by companies and governments across the Western world. Our users learn to build on Palantir’s software to accomplish things like building ships faster, improving healthcare in hospitals, adding resiliency to their supply chains, accelerating military targeting workflows, reducing the likelihood of forest fires, repatriating manufacturing to their home countries, combatting fraud, reallocating capital expenditures, reducing errors in medical equipment, and much more. Teaching people to build with AI is a substantial part of our work.

We do not do any Palantir implementation work — only training and enablement — which makes us unique in the broader Palantir ecosystem.

Ontologize is profitable, growing fast and we have not taken VC funding.

Company Values

Integrity: Above all else, value your integrity. Do not lie. Take responsibility for your mistakes.

Respect: Respect yourself, your colleagues, and our customers. Earn the respect of those around you. Respect is hardest, and therefore most vital, in moments of conflict and disagreement.

Initiative: Act without waiting to be told to do so. Seek to understand what the team must accomplish and take responsibility for contributing to the best of your ability.

Production: Create a body of work. Writing, coding, recording, building, sketching — anything that gives form to your creativity.

What Our Employees Think

In the process of drafting this job description, I asked our team for what they liked about Ontologize and what they find challenging, but which could be appealing for the right person.

See the appendix of this job post for what they said.

About the Role

We're looking for a senior full-stack engineer who can own problems and opportunities end-to-end. From databases to APIs to GUIs, you ship high-quality code without sacrificing speed. You'll work across our Python backend and Next.js frontend, building our learning portal and live training infrastructure. This entails not just writing code, but also using and building AI coding tools to improve the speed and quality of our work. Additionally, you will build AI-powered features that help our users learn faster and more effectively.

Our learning portal is unique in that it will need to be deployable into restricted environments (e.g. classified NATO, UK, and US environments). You do not need a clearance for this role, though being open to going through the process of obtaining one in the future will be viewed as a nice-to-have.

This is an individual contributor role. You won't have management responsibilities, but we expect you to level up other engineers through mentorship and by modeling good practices.

This role will be our second hire in Paris. We are in the process of getting an office and anticipate making Paris our European hub for both software engineering and other roles.

This role does not require any experience with Palantir’s software.

Location

Paris, France (3d/wk in-office)

Travel

We do once-annual company colocations in the US (usually three days + travel). The engineering team does an additional colocation, probably in Paris for the foreseeable future.

What You'll Do

• Take ambiguous problems, decompose them, and deliver working software with minimal hand-holding

• Build and maintain strongly typed APIs and well-modeled data systems

• Work across the stack: Python backend, Next.js frontend, PostgreSQL, and our deployment infrastructure.

• Use AI tools daily to accelerate development, learn the codebase, and ship faster

• Engage directly with end users and stakeholders to understand what actually needs to be built

• Contribute to our DevOps practices and bring ideas for better tools and processes

What We're Looking For

Technical Skills

• Strong experience in a backend language (e.g. Python, Java, Go, etc.). If you're coming from Java or Go and haven't done much Python, that's fine. We've found engineers from strongly typed backgrounds (including languages such as TypeScript) often adapt quickly to our conventions.

• Strong data modeling and API design skills.

• Competency with SQL — you can verify state in a production database and unblock yourself.

• Familiarity with hexagonal/ports-and-adapters architecture, or demonstrated ability to adopt architectural patterns quickly.

• Familiarity with modern frontend development. React/Next.js, performance optimization (useMemo, useCallback), error boundaries, and thoughtful component design.

• Curiosity about DevOps. You don't need to be an expert, but you should want to understand how your code runs in production.

AI-Native Development

This is non-negotiable. You should be using AI tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, Amp, Opencode, etc.) as a core part of how you write software, not as a novelty. We use AI to interrogate our codebase, scope work, draft code, and accelerate every phase of development.

Our engineers get as many tokens as they need.

Language

Required English level: B2 minimum (CEFR) – must be comfortable participating in technical discussions and writing documentation in English.

How You Work

• You ship. You hold high standards and move quickly. These aren't in tension for you.

• You think about the "second muscle": not just writing code, but improving the process of building software. You notice friction and fix it.

• You do low-regret work. You ask the right questions upfront: What are the landmines? Is someone already working on this? What would it take for this to get merged?

• You thrive in ambiguity. We have some process, but not much. You're comfortable making progress without every detail nailed down.

• You communicate well with engineers (collecting context, respecting existing opinions) and with end users (understanding their actual problems).

Nice to Have

• Experience with feature flags and A/B testing infrastructure

• AWS experience

• Familiarity with Shape Up

• If you are familiar with Palantir’s software, that will neither help nor harm your application. But if you have deep expertise with Palantir’s software, especially with the APIs, that would be nice to have.

What We're Not Looking For

• Engineers who optimize for perfect over shipped.

• People who need extensive process and can't function without complete clarity on every detail.

• Developers who aren't using AI tools regularly in their workflow.

• Engineers from codebases without quality standards who will resist our conventions.

Compensation

• Base salary of €95k - €125k depending on experience

• Equity commensurate with a Series A start-up

• Annual bonus — determined by a combination of company & individual performance

Time Off

• 25 days of paid vacation per year + applicable public holidays.

• Additional RTT days where applicable based on work schedule and agreements.

• Generous company discretionary days to support work-life balance.

Benefits

Healthcare & Social Protection

We provide comprehensive health coverage aligned with French norms:

• Employer-paid complementaire santé (mutuelle) covering supplemental health costs (hospital, specialist, dental, optical), with 100% of the employee premium covered by Ontologize.

• Inclusive prévoyance (disability/death) coverage through Rippling EOR.

Retirement & Savings

• You participate in France’s mandatory pension system via payroll contributions.

• Ontologize offers access to optional company savings and retirement vehicles when available through Rippling.

Meal Benefits

• Daily lunch provided or meal vouchers covering the full cost of lunch on working days (meal vouchers are issued in compliance with tax-advantaged titres-restaurant rules).

Commuting & Mobility

• Full reimbursement of public transport costs for commuting to work (above the mandatory 50% minimum).

• Sustainable mobility allowance up to €900/year to support eco-friendly commuting (bikes, carpooling, scooter, etc.) fully exempt from social charges within legal limits.

Remote Work & Home Office

• Home office support including equipment budget and a payroll-paid remote work allowance to cover internet/electricity costs.

Family & Life Support

• Support aligned with French statutory parental leaves and additional company-level family support programs where applicable (e.g. bereavement leave).

Appendix: What our Employees Think

On Culture & People

• "Team collaboration and mutual support structures — we aim to not have a single person responsible for any part of our business. Single heroes aren't required." — Yurii, Software Engineer

• "Culturally, it's genuinely family-focused…and a lot of trust in people to manage their time and lives well." — Fendy, Software Engineer

• "Everyone here is kind, honest, and collaborative. It's amazing how homogeneous that is on our team." — Gena, Instructor

• "The people make that bar sustainable — low-ego, high-agency, open to feedback, autodidactic, and committed to getting better. There's a lot of trust, honesty, and shared ownership, which makes collaboration feel productive instead of political." — Ben, Instructor

• "The entire company is energized by helping others get better. There's no gate-keeping and respect is immediately granted to new colleagues as we expand headcount — even though folks are often busy they still make time to level you up." — Frank, Instructor

On the Teaching

• "Teaching is not only a high empathy skill, but an extremely cerebral one. It's creative, challenging, and playful." — Gena, Instructor

• "Being able to witness strangers' eureka/aha! moment with Foundry, and being the reason why they get it inside 3–4 days of instruction every week or so is a great feeling." — Josh, Instructor

• "I get to do energizing work I love and that puts me in a state of flow, lets me engage deeply with customers." — Ben, Instructor

• "Unexpectedly has a very creative element to things, scratches personal creative itch very often." — Josh, Instructor

On Quality & Growth

• "We care deeply about engineering practice, quality, observability, and accountability — holding a high bar while still encouraging learning, growth, and thoughtful use of modern tech." — Fendy, Software Engineer

• "You are challenged and learn constantly on the job — from frequent teachbacks, creative team lesson planning, debriefs after trainings, clear feedback from peers, and time and space to reflect and improve. There is never a day on the job without learning." — Frank, Instructor

• "Learning never ends (and has become enjoyable) — not just from within the company but at trainings as well." — Josh, Instructor

On Autonomy & Ownership

• "You're given meaningful ownership and the freedom to shape how the role is done off the bat. That autonomy is paired with support and feedback, so you know where you stand without any micromanagement." — Frank, Instructor

• "High degree of autonomy + trust to execute and own outcomes is top notch, but also when help is needed the support is immediate, genuine empathy is real, and the calibre/quality is ridiculously high." — Josh, Instructor

• "My connection to value is immediate, and apparent. I know how I can use my skills to directly impact our business for the better." — Gena, Instructor

On Stability & Work-Life Balance

• "We're a startup that's profitable and self-funded (not VC-backed), so growth, direction, and pressure are determined internally. That stability and control were critically important to me, especially after experiencing multiple layoffs elsewhere." — Fendy, Software Engineer

• "Sustainable pace for the business, sustainable pace for the people. Having both go hand in hand allows people to not only take time off but also to focus on creating their body of work." — Yurii, Software Engineer

• "I value that work-life balance is taken seriously in practice." — Ben, Instructor

On What's Challenging (in a Good Way)

• "The standards are high and ownership is real. There's a lot of room for growth, impact, and autonomy, which means this isn't a place to coast — but it's incredibly rewarding if you care about your craft and want to make a real difference." — Fendz, Software Engineer

• "This role is a strong fit for people who enjoy ambiguity, ownership, and fast iteration. If you prefer highly structured environments with tight direction and fixed scope, this likely won't be the right fit." — Kelly, Sales

• "As an instructor you're expected to grow in public — the bar is high, feedback is direct, and growing through and beyond discomfort is inherent to the job. This is energizing if you're looking for the place to perfect your craft." — Frank, Instructor

• "Start up life means we occasionally pivot and reprioritize things, but that is accounted for and doesn't come at expense of people's overtime and burnouts. Core systems and processes are designed to be robust regardless of the pivots." — Yurii, Software Engineer