Build the compliance layer of the EU product economy
Every battery sold in the EU needs a Digital Product Passport by February 2027. Textiles and electronics are next. Vikka is the infrastructure that turns product data into passports: compliant, verifiable, scannable. The product is live. The team is being founded now.
Live product · EU 2023/1542 · Founding roles · you would be among the first hires · Netherlands · remote-friendly across EU time zones
What Vikka is
A deterministic compliance engine scores every passport against the regulation, 74 rules from Annex XIII today, with a traceability matrix from each rule back to the legal text. A GS1-conformant Digital Link resolver, verified against the official GS1 test suite, makes every passport scannable. A published API makes it programmable. The marketing site runs in five languages.
We use AI aggressively to build and operate, and we keep one line bright: AI assists, the deterministic engine decides. No model, rented or owned, ever decides a compliance outcome. That discipline is the product.
The battery deadline is fixed. The next categories are already drafted in Brussels. Someone will be the boring, correct, self-serve infrastructure underneath all of it. We intend it to be us.
How we work
One platform, one truth.
A number appears in two places only if it comes from one source. This is culture before it is architecture: no parallel systems, no quick fixes next to contradictory code.
Ship in one pass.
A change lands complete: UI, API, docs, tests, translations, migrations. CI enforces most of it; taste enforces the rest. Half-done does not merge.
Deterministic where it matters.
AI writes drafts, extracts documents, answers chat. Compliance outcomes come from testable rules with golden tests pinning them down. We never blur that boundary, including in marketing.
Claims are verified or absent.
We wrote “GS1-conformant” only after the official test suite ran green against production. The same standard applies to everything we tell customers, and to everything we will tell you in an interview.
Open roles
All roles are founding roles: meaningful ownership, direct work with the founder, and the leverage of an AI-heavy stack. Netherlands-based or remote within EU time zones.
Which role fits you?
Five questions. Answer honestly; the result is a suggestion, not a gate. You can always apply to whichever role you want.
A new delegated act lands: 400 pages of annexes. Your honest first reaction?
What does a great working day look like?
Pick the artifact you would be proudest of:
The team disagrees. What settles it?
Your relationship with AI tools?
How we hire
The whole loop fits inside two weeks. We prepare, we start on time, and we do not invent extra rounds.
1 · Intro call, 30 minutes.
Mutual fit. Your questions first: about the product, the numbers, the risks. We answer plainly.
2 · Deep dive, 90 minutes.
Technical or domain, on real Vikka challenges. No whiteboard theater, no puzzles with marbles.
3 · Paid work day.
One day, the real repo or the real regulation, shipping something true. You see how we work; we see how you think.
4 · Decision within 48 hours.
References, then an offer or a clear no with reasons. Nobody waits two weeks to hear nothing.
No role that fits?
If the mission clicks and you are exceptional at something we will obviously need, write us anyway. The best hires rarely match a template.