Chief Technology Officer (CTO) / Technical Co‑Founder
Company: Livinit, Inc.
Location: Santa Clara (Hybrid) or Remote (US time zones)
Position: Full‑Time, Co‑founder level
Traction: 2 signed customers, Cornell Startup Award Finalists, 200 users waitlisted
Company Overview
Livinit is building the “visual brain” for the home; scan a room with your phone, get a scale‑accurate 3‑D model in seconds, then try real furniture in AR and buy in one tap. We blend rapid 3‑D reconstruction (RoomPlan/RealityKit/WebGL), a growing SKU model library, and a recommendation engine that learns a user’s style from a glance. Backed by Cornell Tech’s founder community, we’re moving from MVP to nationwide launch.
Position Summary
We’re searching for a hands‑on CTO who can own the full stack end to end. From real‑time 3‑D/AR rendering pipelines to ML‑driven recommendations, while recruiting and mentoring a world‑class engineering team. You’ll partner with the CEO to turn a working prototype into a polished, scalable platform serving millions of rooms and products.
Key Responsibilities
- Technical Leadership & Strategy – Define and execute the technical vision and multi‑year roadmap in lockstep with product and design.
- Architecture & Development – Own our platform architecture (mobile + web + backend). Make the calls on scalability, performance, and security. Expect to code - cleanly, quickly, daily and thoughtfully.
- 3‑D / AR Pipeline Ownership – Scale our asset ingestion (GLB/USDZ), room‑scan processing, and real‑time rendering stack (Unity/Unreal/WebGL/RealityKit). Drive automation from 2D SKU → production‑ready 3‑D.
- Rendering - 3-D Scene reconstruction and 3-D scene rendering execution
- ML / Recommendation Systems – Guide the team building hybrid rec‑sys (implicit feedback + embeddings), scene understanding, and generative design features.
- Data Engineering & MLOps – Stand up robust data pipelines, feature stores, and CI/CD for models (Vertex AI / SageMaker / custom).
- DevOps & Infrastructure – Oversee AWS/GCP infra (Terraform/IaC, Cloud Run/K8s, CDN), observability, blue‑green deploys, and cost controls.
- Product Refinement & Launch – Lead the final push to refine UX and ship a stable MVP, then iterate quickly as we scale.
- Team Building & Mentorship – Hire, grow, and inspire a high‑performing, collaborative engineering org and culture.
Qualifications (Required)
- Prior senior engineering leadership in a start‑up (CTO, VP Eng, founding engineer) where you owned a production stack.
- Demonstrated AR/VR or real‑time 3‑D depth: Unity/Unreal/WebGL, ARKit/ARCore/RealityKit, SLAM/photogrammetry, or 3‑D asset pipelines.
- Strong backend expertise in Python (FastAPI/Django/Flask) and modern JavaScript/TypeScript (React/Next.js or React Native).
- Cloud architecture at scale (AWS or GCP), CI/CD, IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation), security best practices.
- Experience shipping ML/vision systems into production (recommendation, CV, LLMs, or similar).
- Track record of hiring & leading small, high‑impact engineering teams.
Nice to Have
- Experience with Apple RoomPlan/RealityKit, USD/USDZ/GLTF tooling, Blender pipelines.
- Vertex AI / BigQuery / Snowflake / Feature Store know‑how.
- Fund‑raising exposure (technical diligence with VCs, pitch support).
- Design sense - you care about latency, polish, and how tech feels to a user.
Compensation & Opportunity
This is a co‑founder level, equity‑first role.
- Equity Stake: Up to 6.0 % based on experience and milestones.
- Initial Grant: 5.5 % vesting over 4 years (1‑year cliff).
- MVP Launch Bonus: Additional 0.5 % vests upon successful public MVP launch and first 1,000 paying customers.
- Marketing and Sales bonus: Additional 1.5% for sales and marketing efforts
- Salary: Equity‑first today. Competitive cash comp activates with next funding round; exact figure set by the Board based on capital raised.
