• Jobs
  • Startups
  • Hire
LoginSign up

Role description

Chief Technology Officer

Harmonic.ai logoStealth Startup
TypeFull-time
WorkplaceOn-site
SeniorityDirector / Executive
LocationNew York, NY
Posted9/9/2026
Engineering

CTO — Chief Technology Officer

Location:
New York City, NY

Work Arrangement:
Onsite

Employment Type:
Full-Time

Experience:
5–8 Years

About the Role

We are looking for an exceptional, hands-on
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
to lead our technology strategy, engineering organization, and product development.

This is an ideal opportunity for a technically strong leader who has experience building products, leading engineering teams, and making high-impact architectural decisions in a fast-moving startup or high-growth environment.

The ideal candidate is both a
technical leader and a builder
—someone who can define the vision, make critical engineering decisions, and still dive into the code and architecture when needed.

What You’ll Do

  • Define and own the company's
    technology vision, strategy, and long-term technical roadmap
    .
  • Lead the architecture, development, deployment, and scaling of the company's technology platform.
  • Build and lead a high-performing engineering organization.
  • Establish engineering standards, development processes, and technical best practices.
  • Make critical decisions around architecture, infrastructure, security, scalability, and technology investments.
  • Work closely with the CEO, founders, product, and business teams to translate company objectives into technical strategy.
  • Lead the development of scalable, reliable, and secure production systems.
  • Remain hands-on with architecture, code reviews, technical design, and critical engineering problems.
  • Hire, mentor, and retain exceptional engineering talent.
  • Build a culture of
    ownership, speed, experimentation, and engineering excellence
    .
  • Identify technical risks and establish strategies to address them proactively.
  • Oversee cloud infrastructure, DevOps, security, observability, and production reliability.
  • Evaluate new technologies, frameworks, and AI capabilities and determine where they can create meaningful business value.
  • Establish metrics and processes for engineering productivity, system reliability, and product quality.
  • Represent the company's technical vision to customers, partners, investors, and other external stakeholders when needed.

Required Qualifications

  • 5–8 years of professional software engineering experience
    , with significant experience in backend, systems, or platform engineering.
  • Previous experience leading engineering teams, technical projects, or a technology organization.
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals and hands-on development experience.
  • Strong understanding of
    distributed systems, system architecture, databases, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and scalability
    .
  • Experience designing and operating production systems at scale.
  • Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language such as
    Python, Go, Java, C++, or Node.js
    .
  • Experience with cloud platforms such as
    AWS, GCP, or Azure
    .
  • Experience with modern infrastructure, CI/CD, containers, monitoring, and observability.
  • Strong product mindset and ability to connect technical decisions to business outcomes.
  • Proven ability to operate in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment.
  • Excellent leadership, communication, hiring, and mentoring skills.
  • Ability to work
    onsite in New York City

Strongly Preferred

  • Experience as a CTO, founding engineer, technical co-founder, VP/Head of Engineering, or equivalent technical leadership role.
  • Startup or early-stage company experience.
  • Experience taking a product from
    0 → 1
    and subsequently scaling it.
  • Experience building and managing engineering teams.
  • Experience with
    AI/ML, LLMs, generative AI, voice AI, or AI-powered products
    .
  • Experience with Kubernetes, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL, microservices, event-driven architectures, and distributed systems.
  • Experience establishing engineering organizations and technical processes from the ground up.
  • Experience working directly with founders, investors, customers, or enterprise partners.
  • Strong technical portfolio, open-source contributions, or demonstrated history of building successful products.

Leadership Expectations

The CTO will be expected to balance
technical depth with business leadership
.

You should be comfortable moving between high-level strategy and low-level technical discussions—whether that means defining the company's architecture, reviewing a critical system design, interviewing an engineering candidate, or helping debug a production issue.

We are looking for someone who:

  • Thinks like an owner.
  • Moves quickly without compromising critical engineering standards.
  • Can build and execute a technical roadmap.
  • Attracts and develops exceptional engineers.
  • Makes pragmatic decisions under uncertainty.
  • Is highly hands-on and technically credible.
  • Understands both
    technology and product
    .
  • Can turn ambitious ideas into scalable, production-ready systems.

Why This Role

This is a rare opportunity for a technically exceptional leader to have
significant ownership over the company's technology and product direction
.

You will work directly with leadership, shape the engineering organization, make foundational architectural decisions, and have a direct impact on the company's growth.

This is a full-time, onsite CTO position based in New York City.

Relevant archetypes

Apply on LinkedIn
Save

Company info

Harmonic.ai logo

Harmonic.ai

A network for entrepreneurs building in stealth. Submit your information here so investors can find you: harmonic.ai/get-discovered

Series A
Founded2020
HQSan Francisco, United States
Size51–200 employees
IndustryTechnology, Information and Internet
Unlock human wisdom
ThesisTermsPrivacy
Funding
  • Series A · Nov 6, 2022
Tech stackanaplan, openlab, loxo, bootstrap, amazon-sqs, bridge, serverless, vectorizedio-redpanda, microsoft-compliance-manager, k0s

Claim harmonic.ai

Work at harmonic.ai? Sign in to claim this org and manage its profile.

© 2026 Saywise Inc.