Technical Co-Founder

Also searchable as: Chief Technology Officer

• Founding CTO
• Head of Engineering
• VP of Engineering

Original title: Technical Co-Founder

WhyBrilliant is sourcing applicants for this role on behalf of a VC-backed German open-source AI infrastructure startup.

The company's identity may stay confidential until first contact.

The Role

Job Title: Technical Co-Founder

Location: Germany (Remote-first)

Why this role matters

AI agents are transitioning rapidly from experimental prototypes to mission-critical production workflows, creating an urgent need for runtime telemetry, policy enforcement, and automated failure recovery. As Technical Co-Founder / CTO, you will partner directly with the Founder to architect our core technology from day zero and establish our definitive technical edge in the AI infrastructure ecosystem.

What You'll Do

• Architect and build the core platform for AI agent runtime reliability, telemetry, and automated remediation.
• Design scalable distributed systems, developer-first APIs, and execution environments for production AI agents.
• Ship production code daily while driving technical strategy, infrastructure decisions, and security standards.
• Translate early customer feedback and production edge cases directly into architecture and product capabilities.
• Steer our open-source codebase and actively cultivate the developer community.
• Recruit, mentor, and scale the engineering team as company operations expand.

Who this is a fit for

• Proven software engineer with deep expertise in distributed systems, backend architectures, and APIs.
• Hands-on builder with a track record of shipping production-grade developer infrastructure from scratch.
• Pragmatic technologist who writes clean code daily and navigates early-stage ambiguity.
• Experienced with or deeply curious about AI agent frameworks, observability, and OpenTelemetry.
• Based in Germany (or willing to relocate) with prior startup or founder experience.

What it's like to work here The company operates as an early-stage, fast-moving, and open-source-driven environment where ownership is high. Daily collaboration centers on daily syncs, rapid iterative prototyping, and close collaborative sparring between the Founder and CTO. Decisions are pragmatic, technical, and biased toward shipping and working closely with early users and the open-source community. The rhythm is remote-first across Germany with an intense focus on shipping reliable agent infrastructure.

The offer

• Complete autonomy and ownership over the technical vision, tech stack, and engineering culture.
• Direct collaborative sparring partner in the Founder with a bias toward rapid shipping.
• Remote-first flexibility across Germany combined with high-cadence, high-trust execution.
• The platform to shape a core open-source standard in the emerging agentic AI stack.

This probably isn't for you if

• You want to manage managers or delegate coding rather than staying hands-on in the codebase.
• You need mature processes, defined roadmaps, and rigid structure rather than rapid prototyping and discovery.
• You prefer closed-source development over open-source community engagement and building in public.