Co-Founder Cto

C3Fabf97-9D7D-4Df6-A911-F909281Fd400; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 600 000 - 750 000; Full time

Job summary

A startup focused on data ownership is seeking a CTO and Co-Founder to lead the technical vision for a new B2B consent management platform. The ideal candidate will have significant experience in software engineering, particularly in API development, and will play a key role in shaping the engineering culture and team. This position offers equity, with the potential transition from part-time to full-time after funding is secured.

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing and building production-grade APIs and developer platforms.
• Experience in early-stage startups or as a founding engineer is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the overall technical vision and architecture.
• Build a robust, secure, multi-tenant API platform.
• Engage investors with clear explanations of architecture and scalability.

Skills

Backend development in Python, Go, Ruby, or Java

REST / GraphQL APIs experience

Expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Knowledge of security and compliance best practices

CI / CD setup and basic DevOps

Education

5–10+ years in software engineering

Job description

We're looking for a CTO and Technical Co-Founder to build and lead the technical vision for Data Angel – a B2B platform for consent management that gives people the right to own, manage, license, and monetize their data with full traceability across web, mobile, and API integrations. You’ll: Architect and build an API‑first platform (Stripe‑like developer experience) for consent, data licensing, and traceable data flows. Start part‑time during the current investment phase, then move to full‑time post‑funding. Be a true co‑founder of Data Angel (equity + leadership, not just an employee inside Mindshift).

Engage directly with investors and potential partners on all technical aspects of the business

Build and lead the engineering culture and team from the ground up.

About Data Angel

Data Angel's mission: Give people the right to own, manage, license, and monetize their data — with full traceability across web, mobile, and API integrations.

Core value propositions:

• See everything: Track web cookies, SDK beacons, app traffic, and API data flows.
• Control by purpose: Approve, deny, or time‑box data use with one click.
• Monetize and tokenize ethically: Issue data licenses (not data sales) with clear terms, revocation, and revenue share.
• Proof & audit: Tamper‑evident consent receipts and access logs.
• Easy integrations: Developer‑friendly SDKs and APIs for third parties; a marketplace for data license requests.

You will be the technical owner of making this real

Key Responsibilities

1. Technical Leadership & Architecture
Define and own the overall technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for Data Angel. Design and build a robust, secure, multi‑tenant API platform with a Stripe‑like developer experience (clean REST / GraphQL APIs, strong docs, webhooks, sandbox environments).

2. Architect systems for
• Data inventory & lineage across web, mobile, and backend systems.
• Consent and purpose‑based access control.
• Data license management (issuance, revocation, versioning, revenue flows).

3. Cryptographically verifiable receipts and tamper‑evident logs

Product & Delivery

Work closely with the business / product founder(s) to translate the Data Angel vision into a scoped MVP and iterative product releases. Make pragmatic build‑vs‑buy decisions (e.g. infrastructure, auth, logging, observability). Ship fast with quality: set up CI / CD, testing practices, monitoring, and incident response from day one.

Investor & Stakeholder Engagement

Act as the technical face of the company in investor meetings: Explain architecture, scalability, security, and defensibility clearly and confidently. Support due diligence and technical Q&A with investors and enterprise customers. Contribute to pitch materials, technical roadmaps, and budgets for fundraising.

Team Building & Culture

Initially be hands‑on (coding, architecture, ops), then recruit and lead a small, high‑calibre engineering team as funding and traction grow. Establish an engineering culture of: Ownership & accountability; high code quality and security; clear documentation and developer‑first thinking; ethical handling of data.

Ideal Profile

Experience: 5–10+ years in software engineering, with significant exposure to API‑centric products. Proven experience designing and building production‑grade APIs and developer platforms (Stripe‑like is a big plus). Prior experience in early‑stage startups, or being first / early engineer, tech lead, or founding engineer is highly desirable.

Technical Skills (we’re flexible on exact stack, but you should have depth in most of the below):

• Strong backend experience in one or more of: Python, Go, Ruby, Java, or similar.
• Practical experience with REST / GraphQL APIs, webhooks, OAuth2 / OIDC, API keys, rate‑limiting, and versioning.
• Expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and modern infrastructure (containers, Kubernetes or serverless, Terraform, etc.).
• Solid grounding in security, privacy, and compliance best practices (encryption, key management, RBAC, logging, data residency).
• Experience with databases (SQL + NoSQL) and event‑driven architectures (queues, streams) is a plus.
• Comfortable setting up CI / CD, observability (logs, metrics, traces), and basic DevOps.

Domain Interest: Strong interest in data rights, privacy, consent, and ethical data monetization. Bonus if you’ve worked in fintech, data platforms, regtech, or privacy‑tech.

Personal Attributes:
- Founder mindset: You think in terms of outcomes, ownership, and long‑term value, not just tickets.
- Hands‑on and scrappy: Happy to code, experiment, and iterate under uncertainty.
- Clear communicator: Can explain complex technical topics simply to non‑technical stakeholders and investors.
- Passionate leader: You care deeply about building something meaningful and about the people you build it with, comfortable with risk, ambiguity, and a steep ramp‑up in responsibility and workload as the company grows.

Structure & Compensation

Phase 1 – Pre‑Funding / Deal Close
Part‑time commitment (flexible hours), working closely with Mindshift and the founding team to: Finalize architecture and MVP scope. Build early prototypes and proofs of concept. Support technical due diligence for the current investment round.

Phase 2 – Post‑Funding
Transition to full‑time CTO & Co‑Founder of Data Angel. Formalize team structure and start hiring. Drive execution on the roadmap and early customer integrations.

Equity as a Co‑Founder in Data Angel (significant ownership stake, not token). Cash compensation ramps up post‑funding; modest or minimal cash initially, to be agreed based on circumstances. Exact terms (equity %, vesting, salary) to be discussed individually.

Reporting & Collaboration

You will work closely with the founder(s) of Data Angel and the leadership team of Mindshift, the consulting company within which Data Angel is being incubated. Day‑to‑day you’ll collaborate with product, design, and business development to align market needs with technical execution.

How to Apply / Express Interest

If this sounds like you:
- Share your LinkedIn / GitHub or portfolio, info‑A short note on your experience with building APIs or platforms developers love.
- A few lines on why data ownership and ethical data monetization matter to you.

For companies: Data Angel is a lightweight consent & data‑usage ledger with a clean API that replaces heavy, legacy compliance tooling. For people: it shows up as one “Data Angel” that lets them see and control how those companies use their data. We are in Seed Funding Stage, and need a CTO to assist with the MVP for investors meeting. Therefore, the Co‑Founder position is available. Remuneration would be discussed once the funding is secured.