Founding CTO
NPAworldwide, San Francisco, CA, United States
About The Role
We are looking for a Founding CTO, someone who wants to be the company's technical co‑pilot. You will start hands‑on, ship fast, and own the core architecture. As the company scales, you will lead the building of the engineering team in San Francisco.
Job Description
Location: San Francisco, CA (on‑site)
Employment: Full‑time
Philosophy
Small teams build the most important products. Talent density over team size.
Extreme ownership and intensity. Speed over process.
Taste matters.
Human interaction is one of the most complex systems in the world. AI finally makes it possible to structure and orchestrate it at scale; this is one of the most important problems to solve.
Everyone on the team is here because they are obsessed with building.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the technical vision and architecture end‑to‑end
- Work across the full stack: backend, infra, data, and LLM‑powered systems
- Ship fast, iterate on feedback, and get product into users' hands quickly
- Build the technical foundation that can scale from 0 to 10M+ users
- Recruit, mentor, and eventually lead an exceptional engineering team in San Francisco
- Partner with the founder on company‑defining product and technical decisions
- Lead the gradual transition of the engineering center of gravity to SF
Qualifications
Must‑Have
- 5+ years of engineering experience with a strong backend and infrastructure background
- Shipped ambitious products end‑to‑end with real battle scars from scaling
- Ex‑founder or first engineer at a YC startup or equivalent track record of ownership
- Experience with AI/LLM systems, search, recommendations, or large‑scale consumer apps
- Product sense: designs with the user in mind, not just technical correctness
- Comfortable with ambiguity, speed, and early‑stage chaos
- Wants to grow into a true CTO role, not just writing code but building the team, culture, and long‑term architecture
- Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco, fully in‑person in SoMa
Nice‑to‑Have
- Experience with graph systems, identity resolution, or large‑scale unstructured data
- Familiarity with real‑time data pipelines or agent coordination systems
- Prior experience recruiting or mentoring junior engineers
- Experience building consumer products at scale
Summary Requirements
- Zero‑to‑one product building experience
- AI and data infrastructure depth
- Founder mentality and extreme ownership
- Graph or large‑scale data systems experience
- Team building potential
Benefits & Perks
- Health insurance
- Gym stipend
- Transportation to office
- In‑person SF team environment