Founding CTO

Founding CTOOnsite - San Francisco, CA (SoMa)Base $250k - $400k + 5-10% EquityFutureTech Recruitment is partnered with a well-funded Seed/Series A AI startup backed by tier-1 Silicon Valley investors. The company is building applied AI infrastructure in the consumer social and networking space - a technically ambitious problem involving real-time data ingestion, agent coordination, and large-scale graph systems.The founding team are repeat operators with a track record of scaling consumer products to millions of users globally. The product has seen strong early traction since launch and is now hiring a Founding CTO to be the technical co-pilot - owning core architecture, shipping fast, and building the engineering team in SF as the company scales.ResponsibilitiesOwn the technical vision and architecture end-to-endWork across the full stack - backend, infra, data, and LLM-powered systemsShip fast, iterate on feedback, and get product into users’ hands quicklyBuild the technical foundation to scale from early traction to millions of usersRecruit, mentor, and lead an exceptional engineering team in SFPartner directly with the founder on product and company-defining technical decisionsRequirements5+ years of engineering experience with a strong backend and infrastructure backgroundShipped ambitious products end-to-end with real battle scars from scalingEx-founder or first engineer at a YC startup - or equivalent track record of extreme ownershipHands-on experience with AI/LLM systems, search, recommendations, or large-scale consumer appsStrong product sense - designs with the user in mind, not just technical correctnessComfortable with ambiguity, speed, and early-stage chaosBased in or willing to relocate to San Francisco - fully in-person in SoMaNice to HaveExperience with graph systems, identity resolution, or large-scale unstructured dataFamiliarity with real-time data pipelines or agent coordination systemsExperience building consumer products at scaleTier-1 backed, strong early traction, and a founding team with a proven track record of scaling consumer products globally. If you want to own the architecture of an ambitious AI product from day one and grow into a true CTO role, we’d love to hear from you.