Founding Technical Leader (CTO/Founding Engineer)

About the role

Newco is building an AI‑native intelligence layer for direct‑to‑consumer commerce, interpreting shopper behavior from the first ad click to personalize the on‑site experience in real time. As the founding technical leader you will define the core architecture and build the first version of the product.

Key responsibilities

• Define system architecture from first principles and own it end‑to‑end.
• Build the initial product hands‑on, taking the idea from 0 to 1.
• Design and scale the decisioning and personalization engine across data, infrastructure, and product layers.
• Work directly with the founder on product direction and technical strategy.
• Hire and lead the early engineering team as the company grows.
• Communicate technical trade‑offs and system design to non‑technical stakeholders in outcome‑oriented terms.

Required profile

• A builder‑leader at the intersection of AI, product, and real‑time systems.
• Experience in high‑stakes, fast‑moving environments such as vertical SaaS, applied ML, or personalization/recommendation platforms.
• Comfortable working across backend, frontend, and product without siloing.
• Strong product intuition alongside deep technical execution.
• Thrives in ambiguity and early‑stage building.

Required skills

• FastAPI
• Docker and cloud‑native deployment
• LLM agent frameworks (LangGraph, PydanticAI or similar)
• Vector databases (pgvector, Pinecone) and retrieval‑augmented generation patterns
• Agentic IDEs (Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code)

What we offer

• Significant equity plus competitive cash compensation.
• True technical ownership of the system architecture from day one.
• Backed by a venture studio with capital, operational support, and design partners.
• 0‑to‑1 opportunity to build a company, not just write code.