CTO / Technical Co-Founder —

CTO / Technical Co-Founder — PatentVC | Menlo Park, CA (On-site — 3000 Sand Hill Road)About the Companyis a patent-protected SaaS platform that makes AI conversations legally privileged. A federal court just ruled that everything you type into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini about a legal matter is fully discoverable — no privilege, no protection. We're the fix.We place a licensed attorney in the loop, vault every AI interaction in a tamper-evident SHA-256 hash chain, and generate court-ready privilege audit reports on demand. Our second product, AIGuard Gateway, is an enterprise egress gateway that intercepts all employee AI traffic, classifies content by sensitivity and legal risk, and routes to the right tier — logged, vaulted for review, or blocked — before anything leaves the network.Both products are covered by two accelerated U.S. patent applications (60 claims total). We have paying customers, a built-in 50-attorney law firm, and 125,000 existing clients from our parent company Trademarkia ($13M ARR, self-funded, profitable). We're raising a $2.5M pre-seed round.This is a zero-competitor market created by a federal court ruling eight weeks ago. The window to own this category is open now.The RoleWe're looking for a technical co-founder who can own the product, the architecture, and the engineering team from Day 1. This is not a hire — it's a co-founder seat with meaningful equity, a voice in company direction, and the opportunity to build a category-defining company at the intersection of AI, legal infrastructure, and enterprise security.You'll work directly with Raj Abhyanker (CEO — patent attorney, inventor of Nextdoor.com, former patent counsel to Nvidia, built Trademarkia to $13M ARR) and the existing engineering team (Golang, Next.js, AWS, PostgreSQL) out of our Menlo Park office on Sand Hill Road.What You'll OwnThe full technical stack: vault infrastructure, egress gateway, content classifier, audit trail, billing sync, and privilege engineArchitecture decisions for a platform that must be cryptographically verifiable, tamper-evident, and court-defensible — not just functionalEnterprise deployment across four modes: forward proxy, endpoint agent, reverse proxy, and ICAP service integration with Zscaler, Netskope, and Palo AltoZero-data-retention API integrations with Claude (Anthropic), ChatGPT (OpenAI), and Gemini (Google), plus private self-hosted LLM deployment for defense and financial services customersScaling from early customers to enterprise contracts with Fortune 500, investment banks, and regulated firmsBuilding and leading the engineering team as we grow from pre-seed through Series AWhat We're Looking ForYou've built and shipped production systems — not just prototyped them. Ideally you've taken something from zero to paying customersDeep backend experience: Golang, Python, or similar. You understand distributed systems, API design, and infrastructure at scaleSecurity and compliance instincts. You understand encryption at rest and in transit, zero-trust architecture, audit trails, and why tamper-evidence matters. Experience with SOC 2, HIPAA, FINRA, or similar regulatory frameworks is a strong plusYou can move fast. We shipped the product in three weeks from concept. This is a vibe-coding, AI-assisted, ship-daily environmentYou're comfortable with ambiguity. This is a new category — there's no playbook to copy. You'll be making architectural decisions that have legal consequencesYou want to be a co-founder, not an employee. You're motivated by equity, ownership, and the chance to build something that didn't exist until a judge created the marketNice to HaveExperience with enterprise security infrastructure (SWG, DLP, SIEM, ICAP)Experience building for regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, defense)Familiarity with legal tech, e-discovery, or compliance platformsExperience with NLP or content classification systemsPrior startup experience as a founder or early technical hireWhat We OfferMeaningful co-founder equityCompetitive salary (flexible based on equity/cash preference)Office on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park — the center of gravity for venture and legal techDirect access to 125,000 Trademarkia clients, a 50-attorney law firm, and a patent portfolio you'll help enforceThe chance to define a category that a federal court created and that no one else is building inHow to ApplySend your resume and a note about why this interests you to . If you have a GitHub, side project, or anything you've built that you're proud of, include it. We move fast — expect a response within 48 hours.PatentVC | Trademarkia 3000 Sand Hill Road, Suite 3-245 Menlo Park, CA 94025