Hands-on CTO — AI-First Engineering

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Hands-on CTO — AI-First Engineering based in Ireland.** Join a profitable, fast-growing SaaS environment where you will take full ownership of the engineering function and shape the future of software development through an AI-first approach. This role is designed for a technical leader who enjoys staying close to architecture, code, and product delivery while building efficient engineering systems. You will oversee a modern mobile and web product ecosystem, improve technical foundations, and define how AI-powered workflows can accelerate development without compromising quality. Working directly with founders and external partners, you will have significant autonomy to design the right engineering model for the company’s next stage of growth. ### Accountabilities - Take full technical ownership of the mobile application, web platform, backend services, and cloud infrastructure, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance. - Review the existing architecture, codebase, development workflows, and technical risks to identify improvement opportunities and establish a clear technical direction. - Design and implement an AI-first engineering approach by introducing effective AI-assisted development practices, coding agents, automated testing, documentation workflows, and quality controls. - Ensure AI-generated and AI-assisted code meets production standards for security, maintainability, reliability, and long-term scalability. - Manage and optimize collaboration with external engineering partners, evaluating the current setup and defining the right balance between AI agents, internal contributors, and external teams. - Establish engineering standards, technical governance, automated quality gates, deployment processes, monitoring practices, and incident prevention strategies. - Contribute directly to architecture decisions, technical problem-solving, code reviews, and implementation when required. ### Requirements - Strong experience as a hands-on CTO, Head of Engineering, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Engineering Lead, or senior technical leader. - Deep software engineering expertise with the ability to independently review production code, architecture decisions, and technical systems. - Recent practical experience building, maintaining, or scaling software products through hands-on development and technical delivery. - Proven experience using AI-assisted development tools and coding agents, with a clear understanding of how AI can improve engineering productivity while maintaining strong technical standards. - Experience developing or operating web, mobile, SaaS, subscription-based, or consumer-facing products. - Familiarity with modern JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystems, including technologies such as React, React Native, Node.js, or comparable frameworks. - Strong understanding of cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, automated testing, and software delivery practices. - Experience working with distributed teams, outsourced engineering partners, or external development agencies. - Ability to assess existing systems, make pragmatic technical decisions, and operate effectively with high ownership and autonomy. - Professional English communication skills suitable for collaboration with founders and international partners. ### Benefits - Fully remote, full-time position with a flexible global working environment. - Competitive compensation range of $10,000–$15,000 per month depending on experience. - Opportunity to lead the transition toward an AI-first engineering model from the ground up. - High level of autonomy with direct access to company founders and strategic decision-making. - Ability to shape engineering processes, architecture, tooling, and team structure. - Opportunity to work on a profitable B2C SaaS product operating at significant scale. - Lean, execution-foc…