Co-founder & CTO (Stealth AI Infrastructure for Physical Commodity Trading Venture)

Job description

What we do Physical commodity trading is one of the world’s largest and least digitised industries. Critical commercial workflows still run through messages, calls, spreadsheets and tacit trader knowledge, while incumbent systems are generally better at recording transactions than preserving the full decision chain behind them. Our thesis is simple: a trader is an information processor, and human bandwidth is the bottleneck . Physical commodity opportunities develop over hours or days, not milliseconds. The edge comes from broader coverage, better information processing and reducing the time from fragmented market signal to a priced, risk-checked opportunity. We are building an AI-native operating layer for physical commodity trading , developed and proven through an integrated trading operation. The system is designed to help a small commercial team process materially more information, evaluate more opportunities and execute physical flows with greater speed and consistency. We begin with a small number of repeatable physical flows selected for commercial readiness, capital efficiency and technology leverage, then expand across adjacent industrial commodity markets. Over time, selected external flow originators can operate through the same infrastructure, allowing commercial reach to scale beyond internal trading headcount. The company is founded by a physical commodity trader with 15+ years across leading global trading houses. It is being built with Merantix Capital, a leading European AI venture studio, with working-capital structures and initial commercial flows already under development. Your role The trading operating system is the core technology of the company. It is built around live commercial workflows rather than as generic software for incumbent trading houses and may later support selected external flow owners through controlled operating and revenue-sharing models. You will design and build it from first principles: The trading cockpit. A single workspace that turns fragmented market and commercial information into structured, actionable intelligence. A proprietary intelligence platform. A proprietary representation of counterparties, relationships, flows, market context and trading outcomes. An agentic layer on top. Systems that support opportunity identification, commercial analysis, pricing, risk and execution while keeping the human in control. A learning loop. Every signal, decision and settled trade enriches the system and improves future decision support. Workflow automation. Selective automation of high-value operational processes. What You Will Do Ship the first product yourself. You are a hands-on builder who can take the platform from zero to live trading support solo, before hiring a team. Own the full technical stack and architecture: data ingestion, ML/agent layer, and the trader-facing product. Co-define the company strategy with the co-founder & CEO: the 10 year vision, the platform strategy, and which verticals and flows we scale into first. Go into the field. Sit with traders, visit counterparties, and translate how physical trading actually works into systems that map to trader P&L logic and workflows. Pitch investors alongside the CEO and own the technical narrative through Seed stage and beyond. Recruit and lead the founding engineering team as activity scales. Your profile A strong mathematical, machine learning, and data engineering foundation. Applied AI/ML and data architecture depth: you have built and shipped real AI products into production, in messy, real-world environments. Experience turning heterogeneous, unstructured, multi-source data into decision systems: knowledge graphs, agentic systems, LLM orchestration, or signal/time-series pipelines. Commercially strong, not purely a researcher. Commercial understanding is non-negotiable: you think in unit economics and P&L, not just model metrics. A big-picture strategic thinker who wants to co-own a company, not just a codebase. Comfort with early-stage ambiguity: shipping fast, revising in the field, and building conviction with incomplete information. No commodities experience is required. The co-founder & CEO will help with building your domain knowledge. What is required is the willingness to learn it deeply and to speak the language of traders, not just the language of technology. What we offer True co-founder status: co-founder equity and full ownership of technology, with a seat in every strategic decision from day one. A funded start with working-capital structures and initial commercial flows already under development. Building with Merantix Capital, a leading European AI venture studio: hands-on venture development, access to AI researchers and operators, fundraising support, and a portfolio network of founders who have built in adjacent spaces. Cash compensation calibrated to venture stage, stepping up with funding milestones. Location & Practicalities Flexible, with strong preference for co-working in Switzerland, with some time in the field across our initial trading regions. Full-time commitment; co-founder-level engagement from the start.