We’re building a world-class team to redefine knowledge work with AI

Zeno is a legal AI startup building a platform that helps lawyers research, review, and draft documents with real legal reasoning — not just text prediction. We’re developing technology that can:

• Search and retrieve statutes, case law, and commentary with high precision.

• Reason step-by-step, applying legal tests and weighing precedents.

• Explain every answer transparently, so lawyers can trace conclusions back to the exact sources.

Where most tools automate surface-level tasks, we’re focused on replicating the way lawyers actually think through legal problems, making depth and trust the foundation of everything we build.

You’re joining an early-stage startup that is already working with leading firms. Backed with €3M in seed funding, we’re now scaling a team of engineers and thinkers who want to solve real problems, drive innovation, and create lasting change in the legal sector.

The role

We’re hiring a Software Engineer. As a Software Engineer at Zeno you'll be a hands-on engineer owning the foundations that make the product scalable and self-serve.

This is an individual contributor role with real autonomy. You’ll build the core systems that every feature depends on: onboarding and activation, account/workspace structure, permissions, usage limits, and the mechanics behind international rollout. The work is cross-cutting and highly practical and impactful.

This starts as a focused mission for one to two quarters. You’ll deliver a strong foundation, then continue as a senior IC within the team that best matches your strengths.

What you’ll be working on

• Build onboarding and activation flows

  Ship clear, reliable paths that get new users to value quickly, with strong defaults and minimal friction.

• Implement account and workspace foundations

  Build and evolve the structures for organizations, workspaces, matters, and users so the product has a stable base.

• Add permissions and access control

  Implement role-based access that’s simple to understand, safe by default, and flexible enough for real customer needs.

• Build usage metering and plan limits

  Implement usage tracking and gating logic for freemium and paid plans without scattering checks across the codebase.

• Support international rollout mechanics

  Add configuration hooks that allow different regions and setups without forking behavior or creating special cases everywhere.

• Make the core measurable

  Instrument key events and flows so we can see activation, drop-offs, usage patterns, and where users get stuck.

• Harden and simplify core patterns

  Replace ad-hoc solutions with clean interfaces and reusable components that make future development faster.

What we’re looking for

• Strong full-stack engineering experience

  You’ve shipped production features across frontend, backend, and data models.

• Experience with foundational product systems

  You’ve worked on areas like onboarding, permissions, metering, billing/usage logic, or account structures.

• Good systems judgment

  You design for clarity and extensibility, and avoid “quick fixes” that become permanent debt.

• High ownership as an IC

  You can take a loosely defined area, drive it forward independently, and ship iteratively.

• Comfort with ambiguity

  You can define milestones, make tradeoffs, and improve based on real usage data.

• Strong collaboration

  You work well with product and engineering partners, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and keep momentum.

Who you are

• You like building core systems that unlock everyone else.

• You prefer shipping real improvements over writing specs or running process.

• You care about reliability, clarity, and maintainability.

• You take pride in leaving the codebase and product more coherent than you found it.

• You want to own a critical area and build it properly.

The ride from startup to scale-up
Things will break, priorities will shift, and there won’t always be a playbook. You’ll wear multiple hats, ship fast, and learn faster. Some weeks will feel chaotic, some problems will feel bigger than your role. That’s the nature of the ride from startup to scale-up: if you need stability and structure, this won’t fit. But if you thrive on ownership, speed, and building from zero, you’ll love it here.

Why join us

• Be part of a product-driven team reinventing how legal professionals work.

• Join early and shape the foundation of a fast-growing, high-impact startup.

• Work in a place where hierarchy doesn’t matter — only the best ideas do.

• Collaborate with a top-tier team of engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs.

• Competitive compensation, employee benefits and strong upside as we grow.

• An inspiring place to work in the heart of Rotterdam.

Shape the future of legal work with us.

Locations

Rotterdam