Co-Founder & CTO, New Venture: AI-Enabled Knowledge Codification for Skille

at  Diagram Ventures

Summary
We are launching a ClimateTech venture that will tackle the growing shortage of skilled labour in energy transition activities. Our solution will enable employers of electricians, HVAC technicians, and other green trades to preserve the know-how of experienced technicians and use it to level up their workforce. We are looking for an entrepreneurial and highly experienced individual to act as Founder and Chief Technology Officer to build, lead and scale this venture.
Please note: This is not an employee opportunity at Diagram Ventures, but an opportunity in a new company created through our venture studio model. This company will be independent of Diagram Ventures.
Opportunity
The energy transition depends on experienced electricians, HVAC technicians, renewable energy technicians, insulation installers, and other skilled trades. We are increasingly hearing of project delays and budget overspend driven by a shortage of labour in these fields. Meanwhile, this shortage is only anticipated to worsen as energy transition drives up demand and 20-50% of the workforce across critical trades retires in the coming decade.
It can take up to 5 years of on-the-job learning for new workers in these fields to become effective at their jobs. However, there is a critical shortage of on-the-job learning opportunities that remains unresolved as seasoned workers are often already spending half their time coaching and supporting less experienced technicians. We envision a game-changing solution to rapidly scale-up on-the-job learning via capturing real-time coaching moments and transforming them into searchable answers, training guides, and skill assessments.
This venture has been significantly de-risked, with extensive market need validation and a growing commercial pipeline. Diagram provides capital, network, and support services, giving you the leverage you need to quickly scale this business.
We are assembling the dream team of entrepreneurs and technologists, and we are now looking for an accomplished Chief Technology Officer to build the venture and guide the strategic vision. This opportunity is ideal for a motivated entrepreneur, looking to maximize their chances of success, all while retaining significant founder equity.

Summary of the role

• Execute, build upon, and scale the business’ product and technology vision including (but not limited to) the software platform, integration with web applications, AI-enabled semantic search, APIs for key AI features
• Be hands-on as “engineer #1” to lead the build of the minimum viable product
• Build, scale and lead a high-caliber team of engineers, DevOps, QA and design professionals
• Own technical architecture and development. Assume accountability for the design, implementation, and evolution of the technical systems. This includes making decisions regarding the selection of technologies, architecture design, and engagement with vendors or partners
• Build a scalable technical architecture that will grow with the company and make effective tradeoffs between cost and product experience
• Build and manage the development roadmap, define and track KPIs, progress, and budget
• Work closely with the CEO and Investors/Board to align on strategic priorities

Background & experience

• Track record of building exceptional and scalable software products from scratch
• Experience with data science, machine learning, and building at the intersection of software and data-driven analytics, product development using agile methodologies (scrum etc.), and building and scaling enterprise web integrations
• Previously sourced and led strong teams across all technology functions (development, architecture, DevOps, cybersecurity, etc.)
• Exceptional people manager with experience organizing and managing cross-functional product development teams/squads
• Experience working in fast-growth environments in early stage companies
• Strong understanding of what it takes to build a world-class semantic search engine
• Strong empathy with users and/or ability to effectively lead a product and UX team

Other desirable assets

• Experience working in B2B SaaS
• Experience building AI-enabled search
• Experience building content creation or video-based platforms
• Strong understanding of the tradeoffs between different AI APIs for voice to text, text to voice, summarization, and video editing and processing

• Execute, build upon, and scale the business’ product and technology vision including (but not limited to) the software platform, integration with web applications, AI-enabled semantic search, APIs for key AI features
• Be hands-on as “engineer #1” to lead the build of the minimum viable product
• Build, scale and lead a high-caliber team of engineers, DevOps, QA and design professionals
• Own technical architecture and development. Assume accountability for the design, implementation, and evolution of the technical systems. This includes making decisions regarding the selection of technologies, architecture design, and engagement with vendors or partners
• Build a scalable technical architecture that will grow with the company and make effective tradeoffs between cost and product experience
• Build and manage the development roadmap, define and track KPIs, progress, and budget
• Work closely with the CEO and Investors/Board to align on strategic prioritie