Founding Chief Technology Officer
Nxt Level · San Francisco Bay Area
Apply & track with Apply EdgeTechnical Co-FounderCompensation: $150,000–$200,000 + Meaningful Equity (50-80%)Stage: Seed | $1M–$3M in Funding
You’ll help define the technical vision, build the initial product, establish the engineering foundation, and ultimately grow the organization around it.We are looking for a builder first and engineering leader second.What You’ll DoOwn the technical strategy, architecture, and engineering roadmap from the earliest stages of the company.Build and ship the initial product alongside the founding team.Design AI-native products using modern LLMs, agents, orchestration frameworks, retrieval systems, and emerging agentic infrastructure.Rapidly prototype, test, and iterate based on customer feedback.Make pragmatic technical decisions that balance speed, scalability, reliability, and product-market fit.Establish the engineering culture, development practices, and technical standards of the company.Recruit and build the engineering organization as the business scales.Work directly with customers, operators, and healthcare stakeholders to understand problems and translate them into products.Partner with the founding team on product strategy, fundraising, hiring, and company-building.What We’re Looking ForYou’ve Built From 0 → 1This is the most important qualification.We’re looking for someone who has personally helped build a company or product from its earliest stages into a meaningful commercial business.Minimum expectation: experience helping grow a product or business from approximately $0 to $2M+ in ARR.You understand what it means to:Build before every requirement is known.Talk directly with customers.Ship quickly.Throw away things that don’t work.Find product-market fit.Make technical decisions with limited resources.Turn early prototypes into production systems.You’re AI-NativeYou’re not simply adding AI features to traditional software.You actively experiment with and build around modern AI systems, including areas such as:Large Language ModelsAI AgentsAgentic WorkflowsTool CallingRetrieval and RAGModel EvaluationStructured OutputsMulti-Agent SystemsHuman-in-the-Loop SystemsAI Observability and ReliabilityYou understand that the AI development stack is evolving quickly and are constantly experimenting with new models, frameworks, and approaches.You’re Still a BuilderYou may have been a CTO, VP of Engineering, Founding Engineer, or Engineering Leader—but you still want to write code.This is not a role where you manage a large engineering organization from day one.You should be comfortable:Architecting systems.Writing production code.Prototyping new ideas.Debugging.Deploying.Talking to customers.Recruiting engineers.Making product decisions.Some days you'll be thinking about company strategy. Other days you'll be deep in the codebase.Ideal BackgroundWe’re especially interested in people who have:Founded or helped build an early-stage technology company.Been among the first engineering hires at a successful startup.Served as a technical founder, founding engineer, CTO, or senior technical leader.Built and commercialized AI-powered products.Created products used by real customers—not just prototypes or research projects.Experience operating within high-growth startup environments.Strong product instincts in addition to technical depth.Healthcare experience is valuable, but startup-building ability and technical horsepower matter more than healthcare pedigree.Why This OpportunityYou’ll be joining at the point where the biggest technical and product decisions have yet to be made.There is no legacy architecture to maintain and no massive engineering organization slowing down decision-making.You’ll have the opportunity to help determine:What gets built.How it gets built.Which technologies we use.How AI agents become part of the product architecture.Who joins the engineering team.How the company approaches product development.What the engineering culture becomes.With $1M–$3M of seed funding, competitive cash compensation, and meaningful founder-level equity, this is an opportunity to build a company—not simply join one.CompensationBase Salary: $150,000–$200,000Equity: Meaningful co-founder-level equity packageFinal compensation will depend on experience, technical background, previous startup success, and level of involvement in building the company.