Founding Engineer (Potential CTO)
About the Role
This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage healthtech startup building an AI-powered mobile platform for nervous system rehabilitation and chronic symptom management. You'll be the second technical voice on the team, owning the full product experience from mobile app to AI coaching layer - and shaping the engineering culture, stack, and direction for years to come.
What You'll Do
Own technical direction and execution as the founding engineer, with a path to CTO.
Ship the first end-to-end AI coaching experience, from React Native app to frontier-model-backed inference and wearable integrations.
Architect and build a real-time AI coach that translates biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) into personalized, in-the-moment guidance.
Design model pipelines, prompt engineering, and evaluation frameworks using Claude or comparable frontier models.
Build AI-powered QA and testing pipelines to enable safe, continuous shipping.
Make full-stack decisions across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and AI-native layers.
Integrate iOS/HealthKit and wearable platforms (e.g. Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, EEG headbands).
Collaborate closely with the founding team on-site in Montreal, San Francisco, or New York.
What We're Looking For
3+ years of mobile and full-stack engineering experience, with a strong track record of shipping 0→1 consumer mobile apps with real users.
Deep fluency in React Native and ownership of the full mobile lifecycle (build, release, debug, monitor, iterate).
Production experience building with Claude or other frontier models, including prompts, tool use, and evals.
Experience with AI-native infrastructure - AI integrated across product layers, not bolted on.
Backend experience in Node.js or Python with PostgreSQL and modern infrastructure (e.g. Vercel, Fly, Render).
Comfort moving across the full stack (frontend, backend, infra, AI) with minimal handholding.
Experience with HealthKit, wearable APIs, or real-time biosignal data (HRV, PPG, motion).
Founder mindset - prior first-engineer or early-stage startup experience with the ability to make hard tradeoffs.
Ability and willingness to work in-person in Montreal, San Francisco, or New York.
Background or strong interest in nervous system science, somatics, neuroscience, or trauma research is a plus.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary of $170,000 USD. Equity offered in the range of $500K-$2M. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site in Montreal, Canada (or San Francisco, CA or New York, NY). This is not a remote role.