Hands-on CTO — AI-First Engineering

OnHires

2d•Remote

About The Position

Our client is a profitable, self-funded B2C subscription SaaS company operating primarily in the US market. Founded in France, the company has evolved from a browser-based product into a high-scale mobile subscription business generating approximately $1M in monthly revenue. The company operates with a lean, high-performance structure. The team is highly execution-focused, actively adopts AI across its operations, and maintains a strong focus on monetization, product performance, and unit economics. The product ecosystem includes a mobile application and a web platform, supported by a shared backend and cloud infrastructure. The company is now looking for a hands-on CTO to take ownership of the engineering function and lead its transition towards an AI-first development model. This is not a traditional CTO position centred primarily on meetings, people management, and organisational processes. Our client is looking for a senior technical leader who remains close to the code, can independently assess architecture and engineering quality, and has practical experience using AI coding tools and agents throughout the software development lifecycle. The product is currently developed and maintained by a long-term external engineering partner. The new CTO will initially take technical ownership of the existing mobile application, web platform, backend, and infrastructure while overseeing the agency and evaluating how the engineering model should evolve. The future setup has not been predetermined. It may include the CTO working with AI agents, a small internal engineering team, selected developers from the current agency, or a combination of these models. The CTO will assess the existing setup and build an engineering model that is efficient, reliable, and appropriate for the company’s stage and product needs.

Requirements

Strong experience as a hands-on CTO, Head of Engineering, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Engineering Lead, or senior Technical Lead.
A strong software engineering background and the ability to review production code and architecture in depth.
Recent hands-on involvement in software development, architecture, or technical delivery.
Practical and systematic experience with AI-assisted software development and coding agents.
A clear understanding of where AI can increase engineering productivity and where human review and technical controls remain essential.
Experience building or operating web, mobile, or subscription-based products.
Familiarity with modern JavaScript or TypeScript ecosystems, ideally including React, React Native, Node.js, or comparable technologies.
Experience with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, monitoring, and automated testing.
Experience working with outsourced, distributed, or external engineering teams.
Ability to assess an existing engineering setup and make pragmatic decisions about architecture, team structure, tooling, and delivery processes.
Professional English sufficient for regular communication with the founders and external partners.
A high level of ownership and comfort operating without a predefined engineering playbook.
Technical depth, adaptability, and proven experience with AI-enabled engineering workflows are more important than matching every technology currently in use.

Nice To Haves

You have moved into engineering leadership but want to remain technically involved.
You enjoy architecture, code review, technical problem-solving, and building systems more than managing a large organisation.
You already use AI coding tools and agents as part of your regular engineering workflow.
You are interested in designing a lean engineering model where AI increases output without compromising quality.
You are comfortable entering an existing codebase, identifying weaknesses, and taking responsibility for improving it.
You prefer high ownership, fast decision-making, and direct access to the founders.

Responsibilities

Take end-to-end technical ownership of the mobile application, web platform, backend services, and infrastructure.
Review the existing architecture, codebase, engineering processes, and technical risks.
Design and implement an AI-first software development workflow.
Introduce effective practices for AI-assisted development, code review, automated testing, documentation, and quality control.
Ensure that AI-generated and AI-assisted code meets production standards for maintainability, security, reliability, and performance.
Manage the relationship with the current outsourced engineering agency.
Help the agency adapt to the new development model or recommend a different team structure where necessary.
Define the appropriate balance between AI agents, internal engineers, and external development partners.
Improve automated test coverage and release confidence.
Establish engineering standards, technical governance, and automated quality gates.
Ensure predictable deployments, production stability, monitoring, and incident prevention.
Contribute directly to architecture, technical problem-solving, code review, and implementation when required.