Founding CTO / UK Cybersecurity Startup (Equity Only, Pre-Funding)

About the role

We’re a stealth cybersecurity startup building a high-impact platform focused on reducing real-world security risk for modern cloud-first organizations. We’re looking for a Founding CTO / Head of Engineering to own the end-to-end technical roadmap and lead the product from first principles through MVP and early pilots.

This is a hands-on, builder role for someone who wants to lead, ship, and own—with meaningful equity and full technical decision-making authority.

What you’ll do

• Define the 12–18 month technical roadmap from MVP to pilot-ready product
• Architect a secure, scalable cloud-native platform (multi-tenant SaaS)
• Build core security capabilities (detection/prevention, policy, identity, response automation—depending on final scope)
• Embed security and compliance practices early (SOC 2-ready controls, secure SDLC, threat modeling)
• Recruit and lead early engineers/contractors as needed
• Partner with the founder on product strategy, positioning, and customer discovery

What we’re looking for

• 8–12+ years of software engineering experience, including security-focused systems
• Proven zero-to-one leadership (startup, internal product, or skunkworks)
• Strong cloud experience (AWS/Azure/GCP), plus modern backend practices
• Security depth in at least two areas: IAM, cloud security, appsec, infra security, detection/response, data security, network security
• High bar for engineering quality: reliability, performance, documentation, and clean architecture
• Clear communicator who can translate between product, security, and engineering

Nice to have

• Prior security product experience (B2B SaaS) or experience selling into security buyers
• Experience with Kubernetes, service mesh, SIEM/SOAR, Zero Trust, or policy engines
• Contributions to patents, open-source, standards, or published security research
• Experience with SOC 2 / ISO 27001 preparation

Why this role

• True founding impact: own architecture, team building, and product direction
• Build something that matters: security outcomes, not “checkbox” features
• Equity-only until funding; designed for founders who want real ownership

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