Original job description
Founding CTO / Chief AI & Delivery Officer
Remote across the Americas | Executive leadership | Paid founder trial leading to a co-founder opportunity
Production AI needs more than a clever demo.
It needs strong architecture. Clean integrations. Reliable evaluations. Secure deployment. Real adoption. And someone willing to take responsibility for everything happening below the surface.
Arktika designs and deploys production AI systems inside the workflows that run ambitious companies. We reduce operational friction, increase capacity and turn AI investment into measurable business results.
Now, we’re looking for the technical co-founder who can help build the company - and the systems - behind that promise.
This is not a ceremonial CTO position.
You will meet executives, challenge assumptions, design solutions, inspect the work, make commercial decisions and stay accountable after the prototype starts behaving like a real production system.
You won’t disappear into architecture diagrams while someone else manages the client. At Arktika, the person shaping the solution should be capable of explaining it in a boardroom, defending it with engineers and taking responsibility when reality changes the plan.
What you’ll own
You will lead Arktika’s technical direction and delivery capability from discovery through deployment, adoption and ongoing improvement.
That includes:
Turning ambiguous executive problems into clear, valuable and technically achievable AI initiatives
Joining client discovery, sales and solution-design conversations
Identifying when AI is genuinely useful - and when a simpler solution would be better
Designing secure, maintainable architectures across LLM applications, agents, retrieval systems, APIs, integrations and data pipelines
Making disciplined build-versus-buy decisions
Producing credible scopes, delivery plans, estimates and technical proposals
Establishing Arktika’s engineering, evaluation, security and deployment standards
Building systems with observability, privacy, governance and failure handling designed in from the beginning
Recruiting and leading distributed engineering teams across the Americas
Reviewing code, inspecting architecture and stepping into the build when the moment requires it
Keeping delivery connected to the business case, user workflow and measurable outcome
Helping shape Arktika’s services, intellectual property, operating model and long-term technical advantage
You may be our kind of technical leader if…
You’ve spent roughly 8–15 years working across software, data, machine learning or AI engineering - and you still care deeply about how things actually get built.
You bring:
A record of shipping dependable production systems, not only prototypes
Strong experience with LLM applications, retrieval, evaluation frameworks, agents, APIs, data pipelines and cloud deployment
Architecture experience across AWS, Azure or GCP
Practical knowledge of security, privacy, observability and responsible AI governance
Experience leading high-performing distributed engineering teams
The judgment to use an existing platform when custom development would only add cost and complexity
The ability to scope difficult work without creating fictional certainty
Strong executive communication and credible client presence
Commercial instincts equal to your technical instincts
The confidence to disagree clearly, without making the room painful
Curiosity, low ego and a healthy lack of attachment to whatever technology is trending this week
This probably isn’t your role if…
Your experience is primarily academic and has not included real product delivery
“Prompt engineering” is the full depth of your technical toolkit
You manage engineers but can no longer inspect systems or challenge implementation decisions
You want sales and client conversations handled by someone else
Commercial constraints feel like interference instead of part of the problem
Your default recommendation is to train or build something custom
You love starting prototypes but lose interest around security, documentation, adoption and maintenance
You need every requirement to be perfectly defined before you can move
That doesn’t make you a weak candidate. It simply means you may be happier somewhere other than Arktika.
What being an Arktikan means
We take the work seriously. Ourselves, considerably less so.
Arktikans are sharp, warm, accountable and easy to put in front of a client. We communicate like humans, tell the truth early and don’t perform intelligence for the room.
We believe:
A client should understand what we’re building and why it matters
“I don’t know yet” is an acceptable answer; pretending is not
Simple systems that work are more impressive than complicated systems that photograph well
Adoption is part of engineering
Commercial judgment belongs in technical leadership
Senior people should remain close to the work
Difficult conversations become expensive when postponed
Great culture means high trust, high standards and very little theatre
The founder trial
We do not believe either side should commit major equity based on interviews, chemistry and a few ambitious conversations.
We’ll begin with a paid 6–8 week founder trial designed to show us how we work together when the decisions are real.
During the trial, you will take part in:
One client discovery process
One architecture exercise
One proposal and delivery estimate
One small prototype or internal production build
One genuinely difficult prioritization decision
We will evaluate the quality of your thinking, technical judgment, communication, execution, commercial awareness and ability to work through disagreement.
You should evaluate us just as critically.
If the partnership works, we will move toward a formal co-founder arrangement with clearly defined responsibilities, compensation and milestone-based equity. Any equity arrangement will include standard vesting, a four-year schedule, a one-year cliff, IP assignment, confidentiality provisions and proper legal review.
How to apply
Please don’t send us a generic cover letter explaining that you are “passionate about AI.”
Tell us what you actually want to build.
Send us:
The problem: What operational or industry problem would you be excited to attack with Arktika?
The proof: What is the strongest production system you’ve shipped, and what made it difficult?
The judgment call: Tell us about a time you chose not to use the most technically exciting solution.
The client moment: Describe a difficult technical truth you had to explain to a non-technical executive.
The Arktikan case: Why would clients trust you, engineers respect you and we genuinely enjoy building a company with you?
The human part: What do you want from the next five years of your life - not only your next title?
Use whatever format represents you best: a concise written response, a short Loom video, a technical teardown, a voice note or something we haven’t thought of.
Keep it thoughtful. Keep it human. Make us want to continue the conversation.
Build what matters. Own what ships. Go below the surface.
