CTO
Laika Ventures, Portugal · Full-time · Remote
About the company
We are hiring a CTO for one of the portfolio companies of Laika Ventures, a European venture studio that builds AI-first companies.
The company builds AI-first products: software where agents and LLMs do real work for users, not features added on top. Across the Laika portfolio, small teams ship fast by working with coding agents every day. You will bring that pace and way of working to this team.
The role
As CTO you lead the technical team that builds our AI-first products. You own the technical vision, the architecture and the team: from hiring the first leads to building a network of freelancers and development partners.
This is hands-on leadership. You set the direction, and you still write specs, review code and ship.
What you'll do
Set the technical vision and roadmap together with the CEO and product.
Design the architecture of AI-first products: agents, tool use, RAG, evals, observability and LLM cost control.
Lead and grow the technical team: hire leads, set up the team structure and build a culture of ownership and speed.
Build the hiring network: senior engineers, freelancers and development partners we can bring in when we need them.
Define how the team builds: a modern stack, coding agents in the daily workflow, CI, code review and testing.
Own security, reliability and compliance, including GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Be the senior technical voice with customers, partners and investors.
What you bring
Senior engineering leadership: you have led technical teams and owned the architecture of products running in production.
Hands-on with a modern stack: TypeScript, React / Next.js, Node, Postgres and a major cloud. You can still do a real code review.
AI in production: you have shipped LLM-powered features or agents to real users, and you know what breaks: evals, cost, latency, safety.
You build with coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or similar) and know how to make a team productive with them.
Product mindset: you care about what users need as much as how it is built.
Fluent English. Portuguese is a plus.
Nice to have
Experience as CTO, founding engineer or tech lead at an early-stage startup.
You have built a network of freelancers or development partners and kept their quality high.
Experience in regulated sectors such as fintech, insurance or health.
Open-source work, talks or writing about building with AI.
What we offer
Equity in the company.
Health insurance.
Cash benefits on top of your salary.
100% remote work, within ±2 hours of Lisbon time.
How to apply
Send your CV or LinkedIn to lfg@laikaventures.co, plus a short note (max. one page) on an AI product you built or led: how it was built, what broke in production, and what you would do differently.
A link to code or writing that shows how you work counts more than a cover letter.
Apply