Chief Technology Officer

Energize Group; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 450,000 - 500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Energize Group in San Francisco is seeking its first Chief Technology Officer to own the end-to-end technical architecture and lead a growing engineering team building a six-legged robot for infrastructure inspection. You will guide hardware-software integration and drive field deployment readiness.

As CTO, you will work directly with the CEO, shape system design for real-time coordination, ROS2, and C++, and scale the org toward robust production.

Qualifications

• Experience architecting fleet orchestration or multi-agent systems.
• Track record leading engineering at a venture-backed startup.
• Deep systems thinking across distributed, real-time coordination, and hardware/software integration.
• Hands-on with ROS2 and C++, plus simulation or modeling tools.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the technical architecture end to end.
• Scale the engineering team toward production-grade field deployment.
• Partner with the CEO for investor and partner conversations.

Skills

Fleet orchestration

Startup leadership

Distributed systems

Real-time coordination

Hardware-software integration

Tools

ROS2

C++

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.