About the Role
A fast-growing, seed-stage voice AI company in San Francisco is looking for a Tech Lead to step in as a CTO-like engineering leader. You'll own day-to-day engineering operations, raise the technical bar across the team, and play a critical role in driving continued ARR growth — all while working hands-on in a high-intensity, in-person environment. This is an opportunity to join a small but formidable team building AI-powered voice and text agents that automate customer service and operational workflows for businesses at scale.
The company is backed by a top-tier accelerator and a strong group of investors, and operates in the rapidly expanding conversational AI / call center automation space.
What You'll Do
- Manage and lead a team of 4 engineers day-to-day — setting roadmaps, running 1:1s, and owning task prioritization
- Review code and architectural decisions, ensuring quality standards across speed, performance, and design
- Establish engineering best practices, processes, and project management cadences
- Act as a sparring partner to senior leadership and cross-functional teams (Sales, Customer Success)
- Contribute directly to the codebase (~20–30% of your time as an individual contributor)
What We're Looking For
Required
- 4–12 years of experience, including formal people management of a team of 4–10 engineers (not just leading side projects)
- Strong background as an individual contributor before moving into leadership
- Backend development fluency in Python and solid cloud engineering skills (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
- Demonstrated ability to evaluate code quality: architecture, performance, and technical trade-offs
- Hands-on experience designing and leading AI/ML systems at scale, preferably in cloud-based SaaS or startup environments
- Experience with conversational AI, voice technology, and/or NLP/LLM applications
- Proficiency deploying ML models in production on cloud platforms
- Strong communication skills and executive presence; comfortable advocating technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders
- Highly structured, proactive, and excellent at prioritization and project management
- Must have the right to work in the US — no visa sponsorship available
Nice to Have
- Prior experience at a conversational AI or voice AI company
- Management consulting background
Compensation & Benefits
- Salary: $240,000 – $260,000 USD annually
- Equity participation in a high-growth early-stage company
Location
- San Francisco, CA, United States
- This role is fully on-site, 5 days per week in San Francisco
- No visa sponsorship is available; candidates must have existing US work authorization