Chief Technology Officer

Energize Group; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 350,000 - 500,000; Full time

Job summary

Energize Group, a San Francisco robotics startup, is hiring its first Chief Technology Officer to own the technical architecture end-to-end and partner closely with the CEO. You’ll guide the hardware-software stack, scale a growing team, and push field deployment across multi-agent robotic systems.

Ideal candidates have hands-on ROS2 and C++ expertise, a track record in venture-backed startups, and comfort with investor conversations as part of leadership.

Qualifications

• Experience architecting and shipping fleet orchestration or multi-agent systems.
• Technical leadership at a venture-backed startup, ideally scaling an engineering org through early stage growth.
• Deep systems thinking across distributed systems, real-time coordination, and fault-tolerant architecture; hardware-software integration.
• Strong hands-on credibility with ROS2, C++, and simulation/modeling tools; legged robotics experience a plus.
• Comfortable being the technical counterpart to a CEO, including investor/partner conversations.

Responsibilities

• Own technical architecture end to end and be the primary technical partner to the CEO.
• Lead and scale a small but growing engineering team toward production-grade reliability and field deployment.
• Drive hardware-software integration across robotics hardware, sensors, and software stack.
• Engage with investors and partners to communicate technical vision and progress.

Skills

Fleet orchestration

Multi-agent systems

Technical leadership

ROS2

C++

Hardware-software integration

Distributed systems

Startup experience

Investor relations

Tools

Simulation tools

Job description

A venture-backed robotics startup in San Francisco is hiring its first Chief Technology Officer.

They are building a six-legged robot with magnetic feet that climbs metal structures to inspect and service critical infrastructure, high-voltage transmission towers, pipelines, tanks, bridges, and shipbuilding hulls. It does the inspection, contact measurement, corrosion checks, light manipulation, grinding and prep, welding, and bolt torque work that drones can’t do and that today falls to truck crews or gets skipped entirely.

Off-the-shelf magnet and actuator technology wasn’t good enough, so the team built its own proprietary magnet and actuator systems in house!

They are several robot generations in, with multiple product lines in development, and a longer-term roadmap toward true multi-agent fleet coordination.

This is a first CTO seat with real ownership. You’ll own technical architecture end to end, be the primary technical partner to the CEO, and help scale a small but growing engineering team through production-grade reliability and toward field deployment.

What they’re looking for:

• Experience architecting and shipping fleet orchestration or multi-agent systems
• A track record of technical leadership at a venture-backed startup, ideally having scaled an engineering org through a similar early stage
• Deep systems thinking across distributed systems, real-time coordination, and fault-tolerant architecture, plus comfort with hardware and software integration
• Strong hands-on credibility with ROS2, C++, and simulation or modeling tools; legged robotics experience is a plus
• Comfort being the technical counterpart to a CEO, including investor and partner-facing conversations

Backed by committed seed funding and real customer pull across multiple international markets, riding a strong tailwind of infrastructure investment. Compensation up to $500k plus meaningful equity.