Founders Associate (m/f/d)

About Freshflow

€72 billion worth of fresh food is wasted every year in European grocery retail. Freshflow is building the AI Operating System for the Fresh Food Supply Chain — starting with ordering and inventory optimization for fresh produce departments.

We work with some of the largest retailers in Germany and France — EDEKA, REWE, Carrefour, Intermarché, and E.Leclerc — reducing waste by ~24% while improving on-shelf availability. We're growing revenues 400% year-over-year, backed by World Fund and Capnamic, and just getting started.

The role

We're looking for a Founders Associate to work directly alongside our founder & CEO — a high-autonomy generalist who can move between finance, operations, strategy and execution, take ambiguous problems off the founders' plate, and own them end-to-end. This is the role for someone who wants a front-row seat to company-building and the appetite to do whatever it takes to win.

Responsibilities

• Work hand-in-hand with the founder & CEO on the company's most important and least-defined problems — from fundraising prep and financial modelling to hiring, GTM and operational firefighting.
• Own end-to-end projects across functions: build the financial model, run the data analysis, draft the board materials, fix the broken process — whatever moves the needle that week.
• Build and improve the operational backbone of the company: reporting, KPIs, internal processes and tooling.
• Step into gaps wherever they appear — Customer Success, Sales, recruiting, finance, special projects — and bring structure where there is none.
• Turn the founders' priorities into concrete plans, drive them to completion, and hold yourself to a founder-level standard of ownership.

In short, you become the founders' right hand — a force multiplier trusted with the things that matter most.

What we're looking for

There is no need to check all the boxes to apply! We are looking for motivated, curious individuals eager to learn. Here are the skills and qualities that make you an excellent candidate:

• Strong analytical and finance foundation — comfortable building financial models, working with data, and reasoning quantitatively. A background in finance, consulting, banking, or a founder/operator role is a strong signal.
• Generalist who gets things done — a proven track record of owning ambiguous problems end-to-end across multiple domains, with little hand-holding.
• Founder / operator instinct — you've built, run, or deeply operated something before (a startup, a venture, a demanding ownership role) and understand what it takes. Real battle scars are valued over polished theory.
• Leidensfähigkeit / grit — genuine resilience and a willingness to do the hard, unglamorous work. This is an intense, high-ownership role, not a 9-to-5.
• Fluency with (agentic) AI tools — you use modern AI tools (e.g. Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code) to multiply your own output and are eager to push further.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management — clear, structured, and credible with internal teams and senior external stakeholders alike.
• Genuine interest in retail, supply chain and our mission — you care about the problem we’re solving and the world of grocery retail, not just the startup label.
• Native-level German and fluent English — both are essential for this role given our team, customers and market.
• Based in or willing to relocate to Berlin — this role is built around close, in-person collaboration with the founders.

Why it's more than 'just a job'

• Personal development — Given our growing customer base, there is abundant room to develop skills and grow within the role. When you want further responsibility and are eager to learn, there are no limits.
• Make a change — Due to the fast company growth, the entire organisation needs to be constantly questioned: is this still the best way to do it, or is there something better? We encourage and enable you to challenge yourself and everyone around you every day.
• Have an impact — Every customer that we sign, each product feature that we build, and every productive customer interaction brings us closer to our mission to reduce food waste and mitigate climate change.
• Think global, work local — The company is set up remote-first with physical offices in Paris, Berlin, and Munich and features 12+ nationalities. This diversity is combined with a local office culture and frequent on-site store visits for a unique team culture.

Hiring process

Our ambition is to get to know you and determine together if we are going to build Europe's next leading AI replenishment company together. These are the steps that will help us to do so:

Submit your application: Send your CV and cover letter to jobs@freshflow.ai. Share what drives you to join Freshflow and why you're the ideal candidate.

1. Intro Call: A 30-minute initial conversation to get to know you, understand your motivations, and answer your questions.
2. Screening with the CEO: A conversation with our founder & CEO to dig into your background, motivation and fit for the role.
3. Problem-solving round: A working session on a real business problem to see how you think and execute under ambiguity.
4. Getting to know the team: A session with several Freshflow team members that you'd be working with.