Engineering Lead / CTO

Surge; San Francisco (CA); Presencial; USD 180.000 - 320.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Surge, a credit infrastructure startup, seeks an Engineering Lead / CTO to own technical direction, build the product, and grow the engineering team. You’ll oversee the full platform—from customer experiences to backend systems, data models, and integrations with financial partners.

You’ll drive AI capabilities for underwriting and credit workflows, post-training models, and data-driven insights, while guiding architectural decisions and ensuring security, reliability, and scalable

Formación

• Experience shipping and operating production software with ownership of core product and architectural decisions.
• Strong judgment on technical tradeoffs, build-versus-buy decisions, and managing technical debt.
• Experience handling sensitive data with emphasis on accuracy, security, and reliability.
• Practical understanding of AI capabilities and integrating them into dependable software.
• Clear communication and ability to collaborate with nontechnical teammates.
• Willingness to stay close to the code while leading the broader engineering function.

Responsabilidades

• Own the engineering roadmap, architecture, and technical execution for Surge.
• Build and improve customer applications, financing workflows, internal underwriting tools, portfolio monitoring, servicing, and reporting.
• Design data models, APIs, and integrations with banking, accounting, financial, and operational systems.
• Establish security foundations, access controls, audit trails, data accuracy, and reliable infrastructure.
• Collaborate with credit and operations to automate processes while maintaining oversight.
• Develop AI capabilities for document processing, financial analysis, underwriting support, and model post-training.
• Partner with credit experts on training datasets, evaluations, and model governance.
• Set standards for testing, code review, deployment, monitoring, documentation, and incident response.
• Help recruit, mentor, and lead engineers as Surge grows.

Conocimientos

Full-stack engineering

Backend systems

APIs

Relational databases

Cloud infrastructure

Security

AI integration

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical leadership

Descripción del empleo

About Surge

Surge is building credit infrastructure for hard tech companies. We help businesses in robotics, defense, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing access the financing they need to fulfill contracts, fund production, and grow.

Our platform brings together financing applications, underwriting, funding, monitoring, and servicing - connecting hard tech companies with capital through software built around how their businesses operate.

The role

We're looking for an Engineering Lead / CTO to own Surge's technical direction, build our product, and help grow the engineering team.

Your scope will span the full platform: customer experiences, backend systems, financial data, integrations, infrastructure, and internal tools. You'll work closely with the founding team to translate customer needs and business priorities into reliable, intuitive software.

You'll also develop AI capabilities that improve how we process information and support underwriting, including adapting and post-training models for specialized credit workflows.

This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys code, making architectural decisions, and building the foundations of an engineering organization.

What you'll do

• Own the engineering roadmap, architecture, and technical execution, balancing immediate product needs with long-term reliability.
• Build and improve customer applications, financing workflows, internal underwriting tools, portfolio monitoring, servicing, and reporting.
• Design dependable data models, APIs, and integrations with banking, accounting, financial, and operational systems.
• Establish strong foundations for security, access controls, audit trails, data accuracy, and infrastructure.
• Work with credit and operations teams to simplify processes and automate manual work while preserving appropriate oversight.
• Develop AI capabilities for document processing, financial analysis, underwriting support, and credit memo generation, including model post-training and fine-tuning where appropriate.
• Partner with credit experts to develop training datasets and evaluations, measure model performance, and maintain source attribution and human review.
• Set standards for testing, code review, deployment, monitoring, documentation, and incident response.
• Help recruit, mentor, and lead engineers as the company grows.

What we're looking for

• Experience shipping and operating production software, with ownership of important product and architectural decisions.
• Strong full-stack engineering skills, particularly in backend systems, APIs, relational databases, and cloud infrastructure.
• Evidence that you can take a product from an ambiguous problem to a working solution used by customers.
• Sound judgment about technical tradeoffs, build-versus-buy decisions, and managing technical debt.
• Experience handling sensitive data and building systems where accuracy, security, and reliability matter.
• A practical understanding of AI capabilities and how to integrate them into dependable software.
• Clear communication and the ability to work closely with nontechnical teammates.
• A willingness to stay close to the code while taking responsibility for the broader engineering function.

Helpful experience

• Fintech, lending, payments, underwriting, credit risk, or financial operations software.
• Accounting, banking, ERP, or other business-system integrations.
• Model post-training, fine-tuning, evaluation, or deploying AI systems in production.
• Document understanding, retrieval systems, and structured data extraction.
• Building products or engineering teams at an early-stage company.

Why Surge

Your work will directly shape how hard tech companies access capital and deliver on customer demand. You'll have substantial ownership of the product, architecture, engineering practices, and team, with the opportunity to solve meaningful problems across software, finance, and hard tech.