Founding Engineer (Potential CTO)

About the role

A well-funded early-stage healthtech startup focused on AI-powered nervous system training and biofeedback therapy is seeking a Founding Engineer with the potential to grow into the CTO role. You will be the second technical voice at the company, owning the full technical direction and turning a bold product vision into a production-quality AI mobile experience. This is a foundational, high-ownership role central to the company's trajectory for the next decade. The product is a science-backed, AI-guided coaching platform that uses biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) to help users with chronic conditions repair their autonomic nervous system - no wearable required. You'll architect and ship the first end-to-end AI experience, define the engineering culture, and set the stack that scales with the company.

Responsibilities

• Own technical direction and execution as the founding engineer, acting as a true technical co-founder.
• Ship the AI coaching product v1 end-to-end - from React Native app to frontier model inference and wearable integrations.
• Architect and build an AI nervous system training coach, including model design, prompt engineering, tool use, and evaluation pipelines.
• Translate biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) into a real-time, personalized coaching layer.
• Build AI-powered QA and testing pipelines to enable safe, fast daily shipping.
• Own full-stack decisions across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and AI-native layers.
• Integrate iOS/HealthKit and wearable platforms (Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, EEG headbands).
• Collaborate closely with the founding team on-site.

Requirements

• Dealbreakers:
• Production experience shipping and operating Claude or other frontier models, including prompts, tool use, and evaluation.
• Ability and willingness to work in-person in New York, San Francisco, or Montreal.
• 3+ years in mobile/full-stack engineering with proven 0→1 consumer mobile app delivery to real users.
• Required:
• Deep fluency in React Native with full ownership of the mobile lifecycle (build, release, debug, monitor, iterate).
• Experience with AI-native infrastructure where AI is integrated across layers, not bolted on.
• Backend development experience in Node.js or Python with PostgreSQL and modern infra (Vercel, Fly, Render, or similar).
• Ability to move across the stack - frontend, backend, infra, AI - with minimal handholding.
• Experience with HealthKit, wearable APIs, or biosignal data (HRV, PPG, motion) in real time.
• Founder mindset with prior first-engineer or early-stage startup experience and comfort making hard tradeoffs.
• Experience building AI-powered testing or evaluation pipelines.
• Background or deep interest in nervous system science, somatics, neuroscience, or trauma research.
• Prior experience as the first engineer at a startup.
• Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
• Compensation & Benefits
• Salary: $170,000 USD annually
• Equity commensurate with a founding team role
• Location
• This is an on-site role . You must be able to work in person in New York, NY , San Francisco, CA, or Montreal, Canada. Remote work is not available for this position.

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