{"id":2445,"date":"2026-06-18T19:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/?post_type=job_listing&#038;p=2445"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:38:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:38:47","slug":"wineapp-full-time-founding-product-engineer","status":"publish","type":"job_listing","link":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/job\/wineapp-full-time-founding-product-engineer\/","title":{"rendered":"Founding Product Engineer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Founding Product Engineer<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Building the future of premium wine cellar management<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re looking for a Founding Product Engineer to build a mobile-first cellar management app for serious wine collectors who want a simpler, smarter, and more beautiful way to manage their collection.<\/p>\n<p>The company was founded by two ex-Wolt operators with experience building and scaling consumer and marketplace businesses. We are now applying that product, growth and execution mindset to premium wine cellar management \u2014 a category we believe is underserved by modern, beautifully designed software.<\/p>\n<p>The product is designed for people with meaningful cellars \u2014 typically 50+ bottles \u2014 who want to know what they own, where each bottle is stored, what is ready to drink, what their collection is worth, and what they should open or buy next.<\/p>\n<p>We are currently pre-MVP and looking for a Founding Product Engineer to join at the earliest stage of the company. You will work closely with the founders to build the first version of the product, shape the technical architecture, and help turn the concept into a product collectors genuinely love using.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Product<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The product is focused on creating the most elegant, AI-native cellar companion on the market.<\/p>\n<p>The app will help users upload and manage their wine inventory through label scanning, receipt and CSV imports, track bottles across multiple physical cellars using rack and grid coordinates, follow drinking windows, maintain tasting notes, and monitor market value through integrations such as Wine-Searcher.<\/p>\n<p>A core part of the product is an inventory-aware AI assistant. Users should be able to ask questions such as: \u201cWhat Bordeaux do I have that is ready to open tonight?\u201d or \u201cWhat should I add to my cellar based on what I already own and drink?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The product is also being designed for the realities of wine storage: offline functionality in underground cellars, privacy-first sharing with friends or tasting groups, and future integrations with sensors, barcode systems, and related cellar hardware.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, we are focused on defining the product, building the MVP, testing it with early users, and creating the foundation for launch. It\u2019s an exciting time to join because the product, technology and company are still being shaped.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Role<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re looking for a Founding Product Engineer who can take ownership of building the product from the ground up across mobile, backend and essential web experiences.<\/p>\n<p>In this role, you\u2019ll make the initial technology choices, build the MVP, integrate external APIs and develop the technical foundation for a premium consumer application that can scale from its first users to thousands of collectors.<\/p>\n<p>Success in this role means turning a strong product concept into a reliable, polished and usable first product. Within the first months, we would expect you to have established the core architecture, delivered meaningful MVP functionality and worked closely with early testers to improve the experience.<\/p>\n<p>This role is especially exciting for someone who enjoys building consumer products from scratch, working closely with design and commercial thinking, and using AI to rethink an existing category.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What You\u2019ll Be Doing<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Building the MVP: Develop the first mobile-first version of the product, with supporting backend and web functionality.<\/li>\n<li>Owning the Technical Foundation: Select and implement the initial technology stack, data model, authentication, infrastructure and development practices.<\/li>\n<li>Creating the Cellar Management Experience: Build functionality for inventory onboarding, bottle management, multi-cellar mapping, rack and grid locations, tasting notes and drinking windows.<\/li>\n<li>Enabling AI and Integrations: Integrate LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic) to build an assistant that understands a user&#8217;s inventory, and connect external data sources such as Wine-Searcher and critic score databases, with future integrations for IoT cellar sensors and barcode systems.<\/li>\n<li>Designing for Offline Use: Build reliable offline-first or local-first functionality so users can scan, search and update bottles even in underground cellars without connectivity.<\/li>\n<li>Product, Planning and Long-Term Thinking: Work closely with the founders to turn ambiguous product ideas into clear technical plans, ship working solutions quickly, and balance MVP speed with the security, privacy and reliability a premium product requires long term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What we\u2019re looking for<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Strong full-stack experience (mobile + backend \u2014 APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, auth) in a production environment, with confidence making independent architectural decisions in an ambiguous, early-stage setting where nothing is handed to you pre-defined.<\/li>\n<li>Excellent product judgment and a focus on outstanding and delightful consumer experiences \u2014 you care about craft and aesthetics, not just whether the code works, and you sweat the details that make a product feel considered rather than functional.<\/li>\n<li>Self-directed and resourceful: comfortable without a detailed roadmap, you create direction rather than waiting for it, find practical ways to reach a working solution quickly, and don&#8217;t need constant guidance to move forward or flag issues.<\/li>\n<li>Low-ego and genuinely curious \u2014 happy to do whatever the product needs, from major architecture decisions to small details, whether that curiosity is about wine, AI, consumer behaviour or design.<\/li>\n<li>You treat what you build as your own, thinking long term about quality and outcomes, and see equity as a real opportunity to share in the value you help create rather than simply a stand-in for salary.<\/li>\n<li>Bonus: experience with offline-first mobile architecture and data sync, LLM\/AI API integration, or scanning\/image recognition and structured product data; familiarity with startups or highly autonomous team environments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s in It for You<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Impact &amp; Ownership: Build the core and technical foundation of the product from the beginning, with meaningful influence over architecture, product decisions and how the company develops.<\/li>\n<li>Craft: Build a premium consumer product where usability, design quality and technical elegance genuinely matter.<\/li>\n<li>AI Opportunity: Apply modern AI capabilities to a category that has historically been dominated by static databases and outdated user experiences.<\/li>\n<li>Financial upside: This role is offered as equity-only compensation, reflecting the level of ownership and influence in the role. If salary is important to you, we&#8217;re open to discussing a reduced equity stake paired with a salary component.<\/li>\n<li>Flexibility: Work in a lean, trust-based environment with flexible working arrangements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The company is still at an early stage, and that is the opportunity. You will be joining before the product is built, before the technical choices have been made and before the company has scaled. For the right person, this is a chance to help create something distinctive \u2014 and to have a meaningful stake in what it becomes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interested?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Send an email to siukosaari.aku@gmail.com and henrik.pankakoski@gmail.com explaining why you\u2019re interested in the role and what makes you a great candidate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_promoted":"","_job_location":"","_application":"henrik.pankakoski@gmail.com","_company_name":"Wineapp","_company_website":"","_company_tagline":"Two ex-Wolt operators building an AI-native wine cellar product","_company_twitter":"","_company_video":"","_filled":0,"_featured":1,"_remote_position":0,"_job_salary":"","_job_salary_currency":"","_job_salary_unit":""},"job-categories":[],"job-types":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445","1":"job_listing","2":"type-job_listing","3":"status-publish","4":"hentry","6":"job-type-full-time","7":"job_position_featured"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/job-listings\/2445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/job-listings"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/job_listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"job_listing_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/job-categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"job_listing_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/athene.fi\/jobs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/job-types?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}