CTO

CTO | Industrial AI | Pittsburgh, US

The company

Machine vision for high-speed manufacturing. Their systems detect defects in real time on production lines where tolerances are microns and decisions are milliseconds. Venture-backed, deployed with paying customers. The long-term aim is end-to-end automation of continuous flow manufacturing, which is around 30% of global manufacturing.

The role

First CTO, reporting into the exec team. You own the technical vision and the execution behind it.

Hands-on. Architecture, code, and time on factory floors with customers.

What you'll own

Architecture, end to end:

• Vision systems: cameras, optics, encoders, lighting
• Edge compute and firmware
• Real-time data pipelines and the software platform
• ML models and deployment infrastructure

You make the productization and scalability calls on both hardware and software, and you own reliability at industrial line speeds and high-resolution inspection.

The team: build and lead across CV/ML, embedded/firmware, full-stack and backend, and hardware/systems. Recruit, set the engineering culture, and put in processes that keep speed without losing quality, including an AI-driven development strategy built to scale.

Live performance: uptime, accuracy and latency in real deployments. Building remote monitoring and diagnostics. Creating deployment frameworks that repeat across customer sites.

Strategic: exec team member, involved in fundraising, investor conversations and technical diligence.

What they're looking for

• 10 years engineering, with significant leadership experience
• Prior VP Eng, CTO or equivalent at a startup or high-growth company
• Track record taking a complex technical product from early stage to scaled deployment
• Depth in at least two of: computer vision/ML, embedded and firmware, industrial hardware (cameras, sensors, automation), scalable software platforms. Strong familiarity with the rest
• Real-time systems and high-throughput data environments
• Familiar with off-the-shelf vision hardware: industrial cameras, lenses, lighting
• ML deployed in production, particularly at the edge
• Builder mentality, high ownership, comfortable in ambiguity, communicates well with non-technical stakeholders

Bonus

Manufacturing, industrial automation or inspection systems. Line-scan or high-speed imaging. PLCs or industrial control systems. Experience scaling a company through its early commercial revenue growth.

Compensation

Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and the technical foundation of the company is yours to define.