Co-Founder - Engineering Lead / CTO

About Herdly AI

Herdly AI is building the security layer for agentic AI. We’re creating a security and observability solution that helps users safely connect and govern their AI agents with identity, authentication, authorization, policy enforcement, logging, alerts, and budget controls.

Website: https://herdly.ai

The Role

We’re looking for an experienced backend software engineer with a focus on Rust and technical leader to join us as our Engineering Cofounder / CTO. This is a hands-on role currently but eventually this person will lead the engineering team for the company. This person will own the engineering vision and help build the product from the ground up, including backend architecture, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, and security-first system design.

This is a high-ownership role for someone who wants to help shape a category-defining startup from day one.

What You’ll Own

* Lead engineering strategy and technical architecture.

* Build and ship the backend in Rust.

* Own DevOps, cloud infrastructure, deployments, and observability.

* Help define the MVP roadmap with the founder.

* Build secure systems for auth, permissions, multi-tenancy, logging, and auditability.

* Collaborate with cybersecurity consultants on security engineering and product hardening.

* Help set the engineering culture and future hiring standards.

What We’re Looking For

* At least 5 years of professional experience with Rust.

* Strong experience building backend APIs, AI gateways, and distributed systems.

* Experience with automated software testing

* Experience with DevOps using Terraform and setting up CI/CD pipelines with tools such as Github Actions.

* Comfort designing and shipping systems using either microservice architecture or a monorepo approach such as Turborepo.

* Strong working knowledge of Agile/Scrum development practices.

* Strong experience using GitHub and Git in a collaborative engineering environment.

* Experience creating and maintaining software architecture documentation in the team Wiki.

* Strong understanding of security, authentication, authorization, and system design (e.g. OAuth, JWT).

* Experience with Azure or similar cloud platforms for deployments, cloud firewalls, WAFs, CDNs, backups, and autoscaling.

* Experience with observability, including logging, metrics, tracing, and monitoring.

* Experience with containerization and orchestration using tools such as Docker and Kubernetes.

* Interest in cybersecurity, identity, network security, or AI agent security.

* Willingness to work closely with cybersecurity consultants for penetration testing services and other requirements for getting SOC II and ISO 27001 complaint.

* Professional people leadership experience for managing engineering teams and department budgets.

Nice to Have

* Experience with OpenTelemetry, SIEM integrations, or security monitoring.

* Experience with zero trust, secrets management, or trust-boundary design.

* Familiarity with IAM, PKI

* Interest in AI agents or model-serving systems.

* Experience with creating and maintaining MLOp, LLMOPs pipelines and Agentic AI SDKs for production model use

* Experience with AI memory management and augmentation

* Experience with TypeScript and Python

* Mobile application development experience with Swift, Android Studio, or React Native

* Experience in an early-stage startup is a plus.

Why Join Herdly AI

* Join as a true cofounder with meaningful ownership.

* Make an impact in the cybersecurity industry.

* Help shape the product, architecture, and company from the start.

* Offering equity