AI-First CTO: Architecting Platform & Teams

Toptal; United States; On-site; USD 250,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Toptal is seeking a CTO to drive the product and engineering strategy with AI at the core. You will own the full technical architecture, build AI-first foundations, and guide the company in deploying agentic engineering across production systems.

You will manage resourcing, set high standards, coach engineers, and partner with Product to expose core business logic via modular interfaces. This role emphasizes urgency, depth, and global impact in a fully remote environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science is required; advanced degree preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive engineering leadership experience, including CTO/VP-level roles.
• Hands-on technical leadership with ability to read code and design documents.

Responsibilities

• Own AI technology strategy and architecture, including model selection, fine-tuning, harness design, orchestration, retrieval, and cost control.
• Lead agentic engineering at scale across critical business workflows and responsible for outcomes.
• Set and maintain engineering standards, drive resourcing and workforce planning, and own hiring and team growth.
• Architect the platform end-to-end and ensure reliable, scalable operations with AI-first integration.

Skills

AI strategy

Foundation models

Agentic engineering

Tech leadership

Distributed systems

Hiring & staffing

Education

Bachelor’s in Computer Science

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

AI tooling

Cloud platforms

Evaluation harness

Job description

Toptal is seeking a CTO to drive the product and engineering strategy with AI at the core. You will own the full technical architecture, build AI-first foundations, and guide the company in deploying agentic engineering across production systems.

You will manage resourcing, set high standards, coach engineers, and partner with Product to expose core business logic via modular interfaces. This role emphasizes urgency, depth, and global impact in a fully remote environment.