What are the responsibilities and job description for the Chief Architect / Founding Engineer (Future CTO) position at Sanctum Federal?
Chief Architect / Founding Engineer (Future CTO)
Location: Washington, DC Metro or Phoenix Metro preferred; open to strong candidates nationwide
Compensation: Equity-only until FedSalesTracker reaches $10K MRR for 3 consecutive months
Company Stage: Bootstrapped, cash-flow positive
Product Stage: MVP launched, active users, ready to scale
Company: Sanctum Federal
About Sanctum Federal
Sanctum Federal is a federal sales consulting and enablement firm that helps companies succeed in the U.S. federal market. Our newest product, FedSalesTracker (FST), is a SaaS platform designed to give companies intelligence, territory planning, whitespace analysis, and actionable insights into federal agencies.
The platform is already built, live, and being used in production. We are seeking a Founding Engineer to take the product from MVP to a fully scalable commercial platform.
Role Overview
Sanctum Federal is hiring a Chief Architect / Founding Engineer to take ownership of FedSalesTracker’s existing codebase, infrastructure, and technical architecture. This is a hands-on role focused on modifying, improving, maintaining, and expanding the platform—not building the MVP from scratch.
This individual will:
- Learn and secure the existing system
- Extend and improve core features
- Fix bugs and respond to customer issues
- Manage releases and deployments
- Shape the product roadmap
- Leverage contract developers as needed
- Grow into the CTO of Sanctum Federal’s product division
What You’ll Do
Phase 1: Learn, Understand & Secure the Existing Platform
- Review and understand the current architecture (front-end, backend, database)
- Assess AWS infrastructure (EC2, RDS/Postgres, S3, IAM, networking)
- Identify performance, maintainability, and security gaps
- Take technical ownership of FedSalesTracker
Ongoing Responsibilities
Platform Development & Maintenance
- Modify, optimize, and extend the existing core codebase
- Build new features and improve product functionality
- Improve UI/UX components using React or Angular
- Maintain clean, reliable, well-documented code
Bug Fixing & Customer Response
- Rapidly diagnose and resolve bugs
- Support customers when issues arise
- Monitor system performance and logs
- Deploy fast patches and updates
Infrastructure & DevOps
- Manage AWS resources and security
- Maintain CI/CD pipelines and deployments
- Monitor uptime, logs, error tracking, and alerts
- Ensure scalability and reliability
Roadmap & Strategy
- Work directly with the founders to define the technical roadmap
- Translate product requirements into technical plans
- Identify opportunities to improve performance and user experience
Contractor Leadership
- Leverage existing contract developers as needed
- Review code, assign tasks, and maintain standards
- Ensure high-quality deliverables
Ideal Candidate
Required
- 5 years full-stack development experience
- Strong experience with React or Angular
- Strong backend experience (Node.js, Python, or similar)
- Ability to read, understand, and improve existing codebases
- AWS experience (EC2, RDS, S3, IAM, networking)
- Experience maintaining and scaling SaaS platforms
- Ability to work independently and own a product end-to-end
- Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills
Preferred / Highly Valuable
Experience in the federal sales ecosystem, such as:
- Federal procurement cycles
- Contract vehicles (SEWP, CIO-SP3, GSA, etc.)
- OEM/reseller/channel partner models
- Territory planning / whitespace analysis
- Selling into DoD, IC, DHS, or civilian agencies
This background directly enhances the quality of the product and roadmap.
Compensation & Growth
Compensation
- Equity-only until FedSalesTracker reaches $10K MRR for 3 consecutive months
- Residual compensation begins after milestone
- Long-term compensation to be revisited as company scales
Growth Path
This role is designed to grow into:
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO). You will eventually lead all product engineering, architecture, security, and future hires.