Chief Technology Officer

Location: Remote (Global / NZ-aligned overlap) Role Type: Executive / Technical Co-Founder Compensation: Executive Equity Package (Standard 4-Year Vesting, 1-Year Cliff) + Market Salary Triggered upon Revenue/Funding Thresholds Domain: Cybersecurity / Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) & Automation About Vrax Vrax turns public threat reporting into an evidence-based plan for what to defend and what to prioritise next. We build a structured, human-verified intelligence dataset mapped to MITRE ATT&CK, delivering precision API feeds with contextualised IOCs so security teams can triage faster and run true threat-informed defence. We have built our core open-source tools (Thread, Tracery, Spindle) and foundational collection pipelines. Now, we are expanding our architecture into an enterprise-grade platform. We don't build hype, black boxes, or AI magic. We build trusted, evidence-based systems. The Role: Strategy Meets Execution We are seeking a Technical Co-Founder / Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who will own Vrax’s technical vision while actively building the product. In this early stage, this is not a management-only role. You will be the primary architect and lead builder, driving ~70% hands-on engineering (backend systems, pipeline scale, API architecture, code quality) and ~30% technical strategy (roadmap design, infrastructure planning, technical due diligence with partners and investors). You will partner directly with Founder Kade Morton at kade at vrax.io Key Responsibilities Hands-On Building & Architecture (~70%) Pipeline & System Engineering: Own, refine, and scale our core intelligence pipeline, from automated ingestion and NLP-assisted triage to human verification workflows and structured enrichment. API & Data Delivery: Architect enterprise-ready, high-availability APIs designed to stream structured data seamlessly into customer SIEMs, SOARs, and security platforms. Code Quality & CI/CD: Establish clean coding standards, test coverage, automated pipelines, and technical documentation across repositories. Security & Infrastructure: Manage cloud hosting, environments, data integrity, and strict platform security controls. Strategy & Technical Ownership (~30%) Technical Roadmap: Translate company objectives into a pragmatic, achievable technical roadmap, balancing rapid delivery with architectural scalability. Architecture & Tooling Decisions: Own build vs. buy decisions, cloud costs, and tech stack choices to maintain a high-signal, cost-efficient infrastructure. Stakeholder & Investor Alignment: Represent the technical engine of Vrax during high-level customer discovery, technical integrations, and investor calls. Future Hiring: As revenue thresholds are reached, recruit, onboard, and mentor engineers as we build out the technical team. What Success Looks Like (90-Day Scorecard) 30 Days: Complete a full audit of existing pipelines and tools (Thread, Tracery, Spindle), take ownership of cloud infrastructure, and establish the immediate engineering priorities. 60 Days: Optimise feed delivery APIs, streamline automated collection triage latency, and establish continuous deployment workflows. 90 Days: Support technical onboarding for enterprise pilots, establish SLA monitoring, and co-design architecture for upcoming platform modules (e.g., detection engineering / log optimisation integrations). Candidate Profile We are technology-stack agnostic . We prioritise strong software engineering fundamentals, systems architecture capability, and execution speed over specific programming language requirements. Proven Engineering Background: Experience building, deploying, and maintaining production-grade software platforms, scalable APIs, or high-throughput data pipelines. Co-Founder Mindset: Extreme ownership, high autonomy, and comfort navigating ambiguity. You thrive when given a goal and full ownership to solve it. Pragmatic Builder: Ability to make smart trade-offs between speed-to-market and architectural perfection without creating unnecessary technical debt. Strong Technical Fundamentals: Deep understanding of distributed systems, cloud platforms, backend design, API security, and database structures. Mission Alignment: You value evidence, verification, and transparency over marketing fluff or black-box algorithms. Bonus Points (Not mandatory): Background in cybersecurity, CTI, MITRE ATT&CK, or SIEM/SOAR workflows. Experience with open-source project management or developer-facing products. Compensation & Equity Because Vrax is an early-stage startup operating lean, this position is initially equity-only . Significant Equity Ownership: Executive/Co-Founder equity package reflecting early-stage risk and technical leadership (standard 4-year vesting schedule with a 1-year cliff). Salary Trigger Milestone: Contractual conversion to a competitive executive base salary upon reaching defined company revenue or seed funding milestones. True Strategic Partnership: Direct involvement in executive strategy, board meetings, and company-wide decision-making. #J-18808-Ljbffr