Co-Founder & CTO

About the Company

We are an early-stage B2B SaaS company building a cloud platform in the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) space. Our goal is to help security, compliance and risk teams manage complex work through practical automation, secure integrations and AI-assisted capabilities.

We are looking for a technical co-founder who can take long-term ownership of the product and technology, work hands-on with the existing platform, and help build the company into a secure and scalable SaaS business.

The Role

As Co-Founder and Founding CTO, you will own the company’s technology strategy, architecture and engineering execution. This is a hands-on role. In the early stage, you will be the main technical leader and a key contributor to the codebase.

You will work closely with the CEO on product priorities, customer feedback, technical sales, fundraising and hiring. Over time, you will build and lead the engineering team while staying close to the product and its technical direction.

What You'll Own

• Own the technology roadmap, architecture and key technical decisions.

• Take responsibility for the existing product and codebase, including deciding what should be improved, replaced or rebuilt.

• Build and release production features across backend, frontend, APIs, integrations, databases and cloud infrastructure.

• Turn customer needs and business priorities into practical technical plans and working product.

• Design a secure, maintainable multi-tenant SaaS architecture that can support enterprise customers.

• Build reliable integrations with enterprise systems and external APIs.

• Use AI where it creates clear product value, while keeping reliability, security and cost under control.

• Establish practical standards for code quality, testing, CI/CD, observability, documentation, releases and incident response.

• Own production reliability, performance, availability, data protection and technical risk.

• Work directly with early customers and design partners during discovery, implementation and technical validation.

• Recruit and lead the first engineers as the company grows.

• Support customer demos, security reviews, technical due diligence and investor discussions.

What We Expect from a Co-Founder

• Take long-term responsibility for company outcomes, not only assigned development tasks.

• Balance speed with sound engineering judgment and avoid unnecessary complexity.

• Make decisions with limited information and resources, and adjust quickly when priorities change.

• Challenge product and business assumptions when needed and explain technical trade-offs clearly.

• Be comfortable moving between coding, architecture, customer conversations and team building.

Required Experience

• At least 5 years of hands-on software development experience, preferably in backend or full-stack engineering.

• Experience owning a meaningful product or technical system from architecture through production operation.

• Strong production experience with Node.js and modern JavaScript or TypeScript.

• Strong system design skills across services, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, integrations and security boundaries.

• Experience building and operating production SaaS systems, including deployment, monitoring, debugging, performance and reliability.

• Experience with AWS, GCP or Azure.

• Practical experience with containers, serverless systems, microservices or event-driven architecture.

• Hands-on experience with MCP, including building or integrating MCP servers, and a solid understanding of agent-to-tool architectures.

• Experience integrating AI models, LLM services or AI-assisted workflows into production products, not only prototypes.

• Strong knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD, automated testing, observability and production operations.

• Strong understanding of secure development, authentication, authorization, secrets management, data protection and API security.

• Strong product judgment, clear communication and a high level of ownership.

Bonus Qualifications

• Previous experience as a technical founder, founding engineer, tech lead or engineering lead.

• Experience in cybersecurity, GRC, cloud security, privacy, risk management or enterprise SaaS.

• Experience with workflow engines, rule engines, business process automation or approval systems.

• Experience with enterprise identity, SSO, role-based access control and secure API ecosystems.

• Experience with data pipelines, distributed systems or event-driven platforms.

• Experience presenting technical products to security, compliance, risk, IT or enterprise stakeholders.

• Experience supporting technical due diligence, fundraising, customer security reviews or enterprise procurement.

What This Role Is Not

• A management-only CTO position.

• A short-term consulting engagement.

• A role for someone who needs a large team before they can deliver.

• A role for someone who prefers perfect architecture over shipping useful product.

Location

• Hybrid / Remote