Founder's Associate Intern (m/f/d)
Required skills
Job description
smalt posted this role. Below, we break down what it means for a working student in Berlin: your weekly hours, take-home pay and visa limits.
Prepare your application Get a CV and cover letter tailored to this job, free.
Description provided by smalt
⭐️ Your Impact:
As Founders Associate Intern (m/f/d), you'll work directly for our two founders. Your mission: help us hire exceptional people and move the founders' most important projects forward. Unlike most Founders Associate internships, you'll get visible ownership of recruiting from week one — at our stage, hiring is the founders' most important job, and you'll be at the centre of it.
What You'll Do
- Recruiting (core): source and longlist candidates, keep pipelines current, coordinate scheduling, and shape our candidate experience and employer branding.
- Strategic projects: research and analyses for founder decisions; first drafts of decks, memos, and investor updates — owned end-to-end.
- Founder office: prepare and follow up key meetings, track action items, and keep the operating cadence moving.
✨ What Makes You a Great Fit:
- Strong student or recent graduate with proof you perform at the top of your peer group — a demanding internship, founding experience, or real leadership somewhere.
- Ideally - previous internships in quantitative, fast-paced environments, e.g. consulting, investing, tech
- A people-person with excellent written German (native/fluent) and English — you write messages people answer.
- Structured, discreet, and reliable: you keep pipelines, trackers, and confidences.
- Curious about AI, startups, and how companies are actually built.
- Available full-time for 4–6 months in Berlin (hybrid).
☀️ Why You'll Love Working With Us:
- The closest seat to two founders scaling a VC-backed company — hiring, strategy, and fundraising from the inside
- Real ownership: your sourcing fills real roles, your drafts go to real investors — and a genuine shot at a full-time offer
- Fair internship compensation, Deutschlandticket or Urban Sports Club, and regular team events
Sounds like you? We'd love to hear from you. smalt is an equal-opportunity employer — we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.
About us
Smalt is the AI-first backoffice and growth engine that empowers skilled tradespeople to become entrepreneurs.
We support craftsmen in starting and scaling their businesses by providing a digital backoffice – from setup, company registration & launch, to offer creation, invoicing, documentation, talent retention, and revenue growth tools.
Smalt is building the tech-first backbone to solve the labour productivity gap and create an abundance of craft entrepreneurs globally.
Since inception in 2023, we have raised €12M from leading venture capital firms including General Catalyst, Owl Ventures, noa, and others.
We’ve built strong revenue traction (€4–5M+) in our integrated service delivery business and are now rapidly expanding our partner network model.
Working student essentials
What this HR internship in Berlin means for you: the pay rules, the social contributions, and what international students should check before applying.
Weekly hours
Internships have no 20-hour cap, but a voluntary internship longer than three months generally has to pay at least the German minimum wage. Mandatory internships in your study programme are exempt.
Working student rulesSocial contributions
Mandatory internships are largely exempt from social contributions. Voluntary internships are treated like regular employment once they run long enough, so contributions usually apply.
Check your insuranceInternational students
Non-EU students can work 140 full or 280 half days per year (raised from 120/240 in March 2024). A working student contract usually fits within this — confirm the exact limits printed on your residence permit.
Studying in Germany
