Co-Founding CTO
About the Role
This is a co-founder-level CTO opportunity at an early-stage AI-powered smart home intelligence startup, where you'll own the full technical vision from architecture through team-building. Your work will directly shape how properties detect anomalies, optimise energy usage, and manage connected systems — at scale.
What You'll Do
Own and continuously evolve the technical architecture across IoT, cloud, and AI/ML layers.
Lead and grow the engineering team, including hiring, mentoring, and setting engineering culture.
Drive the product roadmap from a technical perspective, balancing long-term innovation with near-term execution.
Write production code and solve critical technical problems hands-on alongside your team.
Represent the technical vision to investors, partners, and external stakeholders.
What We're Looking For
10+ years of software engineering or technical leadership experience, with 3+ years in senior technical leadership roles.
Proven 0→1 startup experience as a co-founder or early-stage CTO — not an exclusively large-company background.
Strong IoT and embedded systems background with hands-on experience shipping real products.
Cloud architecture expertise, preferably AWS, with a track record of designing and deploying scalable systems.
Practical AI/ML product experience applied to production systems.
Hardware and software crossover experience, with fluency across both embedded and software systems integration.
Hands-on coding ability — you're comfortable jumping into the codebase, not purely managing.
Familiarity with the smart home, building tech, or energy management domain is a plus.
German or Spanish language proficiency is a plus.
Comfortable working with a stack that includes React, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Raspberry Pi, ThingsBoard, and AI/ML tooling.
Compensation & Benefits
Salary range: €60,000–€100,000 annually, discussed case by case.
Co-founding equity up to 5% via an earn-in structure.
Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site role primarily based in the Balearic Islands, Spain, with ties to Munich, Germany. Multiple Spanish and German city hubs considered.
Clera harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to match high-growth startups with exceptional talent, streamlining the entire headhunting process. This innovative approach simplifies the job search for candidates while providing startups with access to a curated pool of skilled professionals who align with their needs.
- Founded
- Founded 2024
- Industry
- Internet Software & Services