Founder CTO - Hands-On AI Architect & Builder

BrainWorks; United States; Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

Flexible work arrangement

Job summary

BrainWorks is seeking a confidential, hands-on Chief Technology Officer to help build and scale an ambitious early‑stage AI technology business from the founding team. This role emphasizes engineering leadership and product architecture over managing an established department.

The ideal candidate has CTO/Technical Co-Founder or Founding Engineer experience, integrates exceptional engineering depth with entrepreneurial mindset, and will own the technical strategy, architecture, and long‑term

Qualifications

• Previous experience as CTO/Technical Co-Founder or Founding Engineer.
• Zero-to-one product development experience, including building a product from early stages.
• Exceptional software engineering and systems architecture expertise with production-grade delivery.
• Willingness to remain deeply hands-on with architecture, development and implementation.
• Strong understanding of modern software architecture, cloud technologies, system integrations and scalable applications.
• Experience making foundational technical decisions in resource-constrained environments.
• Ability to operate at both IC depth and executive leadership level.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and strong technical judgment for scalable solutions.

Responsibilities

• Own scalable architecture strategy and platform evolution.
• Hands-on software development, prototyping, and architectural decisions.
• Evaluate and implement AI capabilities, LLMs, and modern data systems.
• Translate vision into working product with build-versus-buy decisions.
• Recruit, mentor, and grow a high-performing engineering team while contributing technically.
• Establish reliable, secure, scalable infrastructure to support growth.
• Collaborate with founders to shape tech priorities and product direction.

Skills

CTO/Founding Engineer

Zero-to-one product

Cloud architectures

Hands-on engineering

AI systems

Strategic leadership

Job description

BrainWorks is seeking a confidential, hands-on Chief Technology Officer to help build and scale an ambitious early‑stage AI technology business from the founding team. This role emphasizes engineering leadership and product architecture over managing an established department.

The ideal candidate has CTO/Technical Co-Founder or Founding Engineer experience, integrates exceptional engineering depth with entrepreneurial mindset, and will own the technical strategy, architecture, and long‑term