🏎️ TLDR: Cognyx is an early stage VC-backed B2B SaaS startup building groundbreaking technology to accelerate Engineering cycles in Manufacturing. We’re hiring one of our very first employees, and a key member of our “Founding Team”. Our future Founding Data & Software Engineer will design our data foundations and make sure we have the best possible architecture to make our technology as robust and as flexible as possible. S/he will help us embed this data model into our software, leveraging our clients’ proprietary data, and will also pave the way for our future AI/ML strategy, a core of our future offering. So – are you a data wizard with a knack for Knowledge Graphs, AI/ML and ideally PLM’s/ERP’s? Read on! 

📌 Location(s): Paris (with some flexibility). Full Remote work is not offered for this position.

💶 Salary range: 70-100k + BSPCE (1st batch, ≈ 0.6%) + intéressement bonus (up to 20% of annual salary upon reaching ARR milestones in 2025). Usual French perks. Quick salary progression, tied with fundraising and/or growth milestones. 

📑 Type of Contract: CDI (Contrat à Durée Indéterminée), usual SYNTEC branch perks.

🕵️ Position also known as: (Senior) Data Engineer, Data Architect, Software Architect, Enterprise Data Architect, Data Modeler, Data Solutions Engineer

👏 Direct reporting line: Co-Founder & CTO (Deon van der Vyver)

Why we need you

Cognyx is a powerful platform, solving highly complex organisational and engineering challenges in manufacturing. It has a huge potential for leveraging ML and AI to revolutionise the way hardware engineers work on a daily basis.

In order to achieve this, we are looking for an outstanding professional who can not only contribute his/her expertise in data science and architecture, but also help shape the future of Cognyx, whose performance will lie in leveraging the power of Data. As a Founding Data & Software Engineer, you’ll be at the forefront of our startup’s data and AI journey, leveraging your data expertise to inform our strategic direction, and develop groundbreaking products.

What you’ll do

In a nutshell: as a Founding Data & Software Engineer, you’ll play a key role in developing Cognyx’s initial product, leveraging your data skills to design and deploy the most appropriate data structure, and build data-driven features delivering maximal impact to our Manufacturing clients. You will also help us pave the way for a fast-paced deployment of AI as a core element of our technology. 

We think Cognyx is in a privileged position to build an outstanding AI product, applied to the Manufacturing vertical. We think we will gain exclusive access to a lot of proprietary data of our clients, reinforcing our position on the market vs. general AI players. We are also convinced that Engineering is an amazing area to apply AI models, as it contains a lot of structured proprietary data. In many ways, a ‘BOM’ (bill of Materials) resembles to lines of code, AI’s #1 use-case up to now! 

Broadly speaking: As a Founding Software & Data Engineer, your role is pivotal. You’ll lead our data architecture vision and journey. Through interactions and research work with Cognyx’s leadership and customers, you will play a key role in preparing Cognyx to deliver our Engineering Intelligence value proposition, identifying domain-specific needs, scoping use cases, and building cutting-edge “ready-to-use” ML/AI solutions. Throughout, you’ll own the continuous reinforcement of delivered assets, including support for user adoption.

On a day to day basis: as a Founding Software & Data Engineer, you can expect to:

• Design our Data Architecture and the way it will integrate and interact with our clients’ existing software stack (mainly PLM, ERP’s and MES’). 

• Lead our Data Journey, shaping our tech vision when it comes to data; 

• Scope and define our data-enabled features: identifying domain-specific needs, scoping use cases, and building cutting-edge “ready-to-use” solutions

• Run advanced Data Analysis: leveraging Knowledge Graph databases, you’ll delve into complex datasets, uncovering hidden patterns and insights that can drive actionable decision-making.

• Develop or implement algorithms: driving the development, deployment, and optimization of algorithms for predictive modelling, recommendation systems or anomaly detection, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in data science.

Who you’ll be working with:

As one of our very first employees, you can expect to work closely with each member of our “Founding Core Team”, a small (< 10) problem-solving team who will define our technology, our culture, our value proposition, our processes. This will be an exciting human & professional experience! 

You’ll be reporting to Deon, our CTO. Deon is a very experienced founder, with proven leadership skills acquired during his 23 years of experience in Tech.

Why it’ll be fun & interesting to do with us?

Because… there is no one else doing this job! You’ll be an essential reason why we succeed — or fail. As such, you need to take pride in building things yourself – at least until the team further scales.  

What’s next in your career?

As one of our first employees, there will be many opportunities to grow in expertise and/or leadership in the months & years to come. Cognyx aims at a high growth rate, so this could come as fast as 6-12 months away!

We will also put a strong emphasis on making sure you are building new skills, whether in terms of tech abilities and leadership. Our experienced founding team will be there to provide extensive guidance & coaching.

We’re looking for a talented, driven and ambitious professional. We think the necessary skills to succeed are the following, by order of importance:

1. Data Architecture / modelling: outstanding capacity to design, conceive and implement data models that will serve as foundations for our software architecture. A previous experience or understanding of a typical “Manufacturing Tech Stack” (ie. data structures of major softwares like PLM’s, CAD’s, ERP’s, etc.) will be a huge advantage. 

2. Proven experience in building and deploying ML/AI models, applying advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI techniques to real-world problems. Proficiency in Python and SQL is essential. Previous experience with Knowledge Graphs (neo4j, arangoDB, Neptune…) will be an obvious plus. (Note: this will very likely require aM.Sc or Ph.D. in computer science, data science, mathematics, statistics, or a related field.)

3. Software Engineering abilities: ability to embed data models into our existing software; 

4. Exceptional problem-solving abilities, with a knack for translating business questions into technical solutions. 

5. Good communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to convey complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences alike.

We kindly advise you to turn back if…

• You’re not an entrepreneurial profile: self-driven, autonomous, dynamic. You understand the risk-profile of a job in an early stage startup (= high-risk, high-return !). You’re comfortable with uncertainty, frequent change and a certain degree of improvisation. You like taking on new tasks that weren’t mentioned in this job description. This is especially true for our Core Team!

• You’re not fully comfortable working in English (our team is international from day 1 and English is our official language). French will be a plus, though! 

• You’re not comfortable with “getting your hands dirty”. This is a hands-on role! 

• You’re not looking for a positively challenging job. Clearly, this is not an easy job. Although we pay a close attention to work & life balance (see below), we realise that we are addressing a complex problem, for demanding clients, and that our mission is a very hard one. “Average” or “good enough” won’t cut it: we need “outstanding” and “excellence”.

Please use the form of this website to apply. After this, here’s what you can expect:

1. Quick intro discussion on role scope and fit with your career goals (30 min Call, with CTO or CEO)

2. Deep-Dive into your career & past achievements (1.5hr F2F, with CTO)

3. Case-Study requiring home preparation (1hr F2F, with CTO + guests)

4. Final cultural fit & wrap-up discussion (45 min, with CEO)

5. Reference check (2-3 calls – note: you’ll also be allowed to run this on us :)

6. Final Board approval (might require 1 more quick call)

Final words to our candidates!

WFH or in-office?

At Cognyx, aligning with our values and culture means embracing the energy of working together, especially for members of our founding “Core Team” in the critical early months of our company. While understanding that “life” happens and requires some flexibility (= 1-2 days WFH per week), we’re convinced that in-person collaboration sparks creativity and drives innovative outcomes. To enhance this connection, we encourage all employees to work mostly from our Paris offices, or from our clients’ offices when necessary to accelerate feedback loops.

Work & Life balance: yes, it’s a thing.

At Cognyx, we understand the importance of work-life balance, especially for our employees who are parents. Our CEO, a father of 2 young children, is a testament to our commitment to create a flexible and supportive environment for all. We believe in the importance of being there for our families and we strive to provide flexible schedules where possible. We always encourage our employees to take the time they need for their personal lives, as we understand that a balanced life leads to longer tenures, increased productivity and happiness in the workplace.

We welcome all candidates!

Cognyx is dedicated to fostering a culture of diversity, equality, and inclusion. We invite candidates from diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to apply as we strive to solve Manufacturing’s most challenging problems. We recognize that not all candidates will meet every requirement; we value your unique contributions and encourage you to apply even if you do not check all the boxes.

Cognyx is committed to ensuring our job application process is accessible to everyone. If you have a disability, whether visible or not, and require any reasonable accommodations at any stage of the application or hiring process — or within the job itself — please contact us so we can provide the necessary support.