Co-Founder & CTO

Co-Founder & CTO
Porto
Porto, Porto District, Portugal

Company Description

ZAAI is an artificial intelligence company building Horizon, a
- generation Forecasting & Planning Intelligence platform for retail, while also delivering custom AI solutions for leading brands. With Horizon, we help retailers turn complex, fragmented data into clear forecasts and actionable insights across demand planning, inventory optimization, pricing, promotions, and customer experience. Our ambition is to build the decision intelligence layer that sits above ERP, commerce, and operational systems.

ZAAI is an
- stage, ambitious, and
- driven company. We are building a
- defining AI company where
- world impact, technical excellence, and business relevance are
- negotiable. We are looking for a CTO to join ZAAI at a formative stage and take full ownership of the company’s technology, product execution, and technical vision.

This is a
- level role with meaningful equity, designed for someone who wants to build a company, not just ship features. You will be responsible for turning ZAAI’s vision into a scalable, defensible AI platform while staying deeply
- on in the early years.

You will work as a true partner to the founders, shaping company strategy, product direction, and
-
- market decisions alongside the technical architecture. This role blends deep technical execution with
- term ownership, risk, and upside.

What You’ll Own

• End-to-end ownership of ZAAI’s technology stack, from early prototypes to a scalable production platform.
• The technical vision and roadmap for our AI forecasting engine and broader AI product suite.
• Architectural decisions that balance speed, quality, and
  - term leverage.
• Engineering standards, development culture, and hiring as the team grows.
• The transition from
  - driven consultancy work to a
  - led, repeatable platform.
• Technical credibility with customers, acting as a trusted partner in
  - stakes retail use cases.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and evolve ZAAI’s core AI platform, remaining
  - on in implementation.
• Design and implement backend systems supporting forecasting, search, recommendation, and
  - based AI workflows.
• Work closely with data scientists to turn ML models and AI agents into reliable,
  - grade systems.
• Design data pipelines and infrastructure for ingesting, processing, and serving
  - scale retail data.
• Make foundational decisions around cloud infrastructure, deployment, scalability, reliability, and security.
• Build systems for semantic search, retrieval, orchestration, and AI-driven
  - making.
• Establish best practices for code quality, testing, observability, and operations.
• Collaborate with founders, product, and
  - facing teams to align technical execution with business strategy.
• Hire, mentor, and lead the engineering team as ZAAI scales.
• Help define ZAAI’s technical differentiation and
  - term moat.

Who We’re Looking For

• A senior,
  - on engineer or technical leader ready to step into a founder role.
• Strong background in software engineering, system design, and building production systems.
• Deep experience with Python and backend development (APIs, services, data processing).
• Practical experience deploying and operating
  - based systems (containers, CI/CD, monitoring).
• Hands-on exposure to AI/ML systems, data platforms, or intelligent
  - support tools.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, making
  - impact decisions with incomplete information.
• Entrepreneurial mindset: ownership, accountability, and bias toward action.
• Ability to communicate clearly with founders, customers, and
  - technical stakeholders.
• Prior startup experience is a plus, but not required if you’ve built and owned complex systems
  -
  - end.

Why This Role

• Founder-level equity with
  - term upside.
• Direct influence over product, technology, and company direction.
• Opportunity to build a
  - defining AI platform from the ground up.
• Work closely with customers and see immediate
  - world impact.
• Freedom to shape architecture, culture, and engineering standards without legacy constraints.
• A chance to turn deep technical skill into lasting ownership.

Bonus Points If

• You’ve previously founded or been an early engineer at a startup.
• You’ve built AI, ML, or
  - intensive products used by real customers.
• You have experience with forecasting,
  - series systems, search, or recommendation engines.
• You’ve worked in retail,
  - commerce, or
  - chain domains.
• You enjoy both building systems and building companies.