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CTO / Founding Engineer Wayd, SF

About Wayd

Our mission is to maximize serendipity.
We aim to be Earth’s strongest force for creating, sustaining, and strengthening human connections. We believe technology’s highest purpose is amplifying our humanity: presence, memory, nuance.
We want to make humans more human. In a world full of AI companions, AI friends, and AI everything, we believe the AI best use-case is not to substitute but enhance human connections. That’s why we're building Wayd - the next Instagram, powered by the world’s first autonomous social agents.
We are backed & received offers by the same legendary investors of: SpaceX, OpenAI, Instagram, Pinterest, Notion, Stripe, ...
We are driven by ambitious goals, fast execution, and a strong sense of urgency. We are assembling the team to make our first "rocket" launch happen.

About the Role

You will system design, architect and code our product, infrastructure, AI agent engine, Machine Learning Models & IOS App starting from scratch, using first principles thinking.
Your role might involve coming up with novel ways for users to interact with social networks - product thinking.
Sometimes you'll have take the data scientist hat, some others the product manager hat all while being the world class engineer you are.
We are looking for an a person that think of themselves as an inventor. Your work will be seen and used by millions of people. You'll be in the early founding team with possible CTO role.

About the team

You'll be our first or second hire.
This team thrives on high standards and direct communication - no corporate lingo, no “process,” no fake camaraderie.
You’ll work with people in the top 0.1% of their fields.
Every member brings a track record of exceptional achievement and relentless execution, including:
• Creating an app featured by Apple, with 500k+ downloads, at just 18 years old.
• Launching a website with over 1M views and managing a team of writers at 13.
• Scoring perfect score in mathematics, placing in the top % nationally.
How we work:

• In-person NYC / SF

• Direct, blunt communication.  • Relentless velocity. We ship faster than companies 5x our size. • Hardcore work ethic. We outwork, outthink, and out-execute. • Risk-takers. Make mistakes, learn fast, win big.

Compensation: involves cash + heavy equity.

We want you if and only if you:

• Are an incredibly independent thinker. Do you usually have a different opinion than your friends group or people around you?

• Have evidence of having successfully completed hard stuff in the past (sports, video-games, internship project, ...)

• Have no Tolerance for Bullshit: You give and receive feedback directly, with clarity and speed. You will offend, and you will get offended sometimes - and that's okay.

• You have a strong point-of-view, without ego — You may occasionally pursue a hunch that not everyone on the team agrees with, but are relentless about testing, deleting, and learning from ideas which don’t work

• Possess a high-agency, generalist mindset, adaptable across diverse challenges.

• Question everything, and consider yourself an inventor.

Ideal Experience

• Having worked in extremely technical and complex projects in the past

• Interested in Machine Learning, AI agents, Data Science, Scaling Infra, Swift

• Evidence of being a great coder and general evidence of excellence

Your Info

Upload your resume

Evidence of Excellence

We look for evidence of exceptional ability. Please provide us with three examples highlighting your exceptional ability concisely. This is your moment to WOW us! NOTE: Answering this question fully is the most important part of our interview process. We prefer if you make it personal, we are looking for clear and unquestionable evidence for excellence throughout your life. Not necessarily highlights from your resume. 1 sentence max per bullet point.

Who inspires you?

It could be a famous person or somebody you know.

What would you do if you had no chance of failure?

Imagine you receive a magical envelope. Whatever you write inside this envelope, you will become - no chance of failure, guaranteed. You can choose anything: a singer, an actor, anything at all. What would you write? if you don’t write anything in the envelope within five minutes, you’ll lose this chance forever.

What's your favorite movie?

Can you also design?

Are you currently authorized to work in the United States?

Will you, at any point, require employer sponsorship to work in the United States?