Founding CTO

Founding CTO — GM3GM3 is the agentic workflow layer for mobile-app user acquisition. Set up, optimize and monitor paid campaigns across Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Apple Ads, AppLovin, Moloco and Liftoff from one place, with campaigns as versioned specs and one normalized data shape across every network and MMP.App marketers spend roughly $100B a year acquiring users (AppsFlyer forecast $95B of app-install ad spend for 2025, growing ~10% annually). Nearly all of it is still run through a patchwork of network dashboards, spreadsheets and BI tools. The ad networks are closing the loop with their own black-box automation; nobody owns the advertiser's side of that loop. That is the gap GM3 fills.THE TEAMGM3 is founded by Brendan Lyall (CEO), an 18-year mobile UA and monetization operator: co-founder of Grow Mobile (acquired by Perion for $42M, scaled to $200M+ in revenue) and Downstream.ai (acquired by Snap for approx $80M), then growth and ads leadership at Snap and Microsoft AI. His co-founder [Name] (Chief Business Officer) has 18 years of experience in web and mobile advertising, app monetization and gaming: AppLovin's first VP of Business Development and part of its leadership team, and later led revenue partnerships at Snap. The company is pre-launch, with a working prototype, design-partner conversations underway, and a $3M–5M seed round planned.GM3 also has a technical advisor who co-founded and sold two ad tech companies for a combined $120M+ and was a technical executive at an ad tech platform that exited for $300M. He is building some early pieces of V1 part-time and advises on architecture, ad-platform integrations and hiring.THE ROLEThis is GM3's first engineering seat and the CTO seat from day one, with founder-level equity. You own infrastructure and the technical side of the product. Brendan co-owns product with you and owns ops, strategy, GTM and fundraising. Our CBO owns sales, BD, revenue and customer retention. The roadmap is set by the three of you, with input from our technical advisor.In the first 6 months you will:Take GM3 from prototype to a production V1 running real spend for 3–5 design partners within 6 monthsOwn the architecture: multi-network connector layer, normalized campaign and performance data model, and the agent layer on topSecure and maintain partner API access with Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Apple Ads, AppLovin, Moloco and Liftoff, expanding to additional partners and distribution channels over timeDecide the form factor with Brendan (IDE/CLI-native, a GM3 desktop app, or both) and ship itSit in on fundraising conversations as the technical founderHire the first 2–3 engineers after the raiseYou will build the platform. For the first 6 months that means writing most of the code yourself, and we expect you to use AI and agentic coding tools heavily to do it, without lowering the bar on code quality, testing or reliability. You decide where agents are trusted and where they are not. You will work closely with our technical advisor and build the large majority of the product we bring to market.WHAT YOU'LL BUILDFour layers, in roughly this order:Connectors. Authenticated integrations with Meta Marketing API, Google Ads API, TikTok Business API, Apple Ads and the major MMPs (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Kochava). Rate limits, pagination, auth refresh, schema drift — the unglamorous work that decides whether the product is trustworthy.Normalized data model. One shape for campaigns, ad sets, creatives, spend and attributed events across every source, with campaigns expressed as versioned, diffable specs.Agent layer. LLM-driven setup, optimization and monitoring agents that reason over that data, propose changes and execute them, with a human approval step on spend.Surface. Whatever the user touches: CLI and IDE integration, scheduled report artifacts, and possibly a GM3 desktop app. This is still an open product decision you will help make.Current stack is Python and TypeScript. You are free to change it.WHO WE'RE LOOKING FORWe care more about how fast you learn and how well you build than how many years you've done it. What matters most:You have built in advertising or marketing technology, or in something with the same shape: high-volume third-party APIs, real money moving, performance data people make decisions on. Mobile ad tech is a strong plus.You have built against large external APIs (ad platforms, payments, data providers) and know how they breakYou have shipped and operated production software that moves money or spend, and you know what it costs when it failsYou can own a system end to end and grow a team around it. Years of management experience are not required; judgment and the ability to hire well areYou are fluent with LLMs as a building block: tool use, agent loops, evals, cost and latency, and where they failYou want real technical ownership and a founder's stake in the outcome: equity-heavy, salary-light (to start), fast, high ambiguity, and a seat at the table for every decision that matters. You care about building a high-quality product in a large, underserved market more than you care about a predictable path, and you are playing for a big result.Strong signals, not requirements:Mobile ad tech or UA tooling experience, especially on the buy side: building for a UA team's daily workflowPrior startup founding or early-employee experience through a raiseExperience with data pipelines at the scale of millions of daily eventsYou already use AI coding agents as a core part of how you shipWe do not care about a CS degree, a specific language, FAANG on your resume, or how many years are on it.WHAT WE OFFERFounder-level equity. This is the primary compensation until the raise closes.Cash. Early stage startup level salary, then market-rate founder salary post-raise.Title. Founding CTO reporting to the CEODecision rights. You own infrastructure, the stack, the technical side of the product and engineering hiring. The product roadmap is co-owned with the CEO.Location. San Francisco / Bay Area preferred.