About Saura

Saura.io is a Toronto-based pre-seed AI startup offering AI-powered products and services for small and medium-sized businesses. Our immediate focus is helping SMEs reduce marketing and operational costs through productized tools and service-led automation systems. From auto-replying to Google reviews to building AI voice agents and DM automation, our solutions are designed to be fast, affordable, and scalable.

But this is just the entry point. Our long-term vision is to shape a Canada-first AI ecosystem—focused on sectors where AI matters most: climate-tech, healthcare access, free speech, and public infrastructure. We’re not chasing trends—we’re here to build the underlying systems.

We’re currently pre-funding and self-driven. No institutional money. No inflated hierarchy. We build, validate, iterate, and stay close to customer pain. Visit saura.io to explore more.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) as a technical co-founder. This is not a salaried position. It is an equity-only role at this stage, structured via a standard Founder’s Equity Agreement with vesting.

This is a deeply AI-focused role. Everything we build—tools, services, systems—is powered by generative AI, large language models, and automation layers. You must have practical experience with AI technologies: prompt engineering, API orchestration, embeddings, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), LLM pipelines, or related applications. This is not an AI-adjacent or strategy-only role. It is hands-on.

This will not start as a full-time role. Initially, the expectation is part-time engagement—enough to collaboratively build functioning MVPs and technical demos that can support funding conversations and early pilots. You are welcome to contribute in either a part-time or full-time capacity, based on your availability and alignment with our build timelines. Once we raise, the CTO role becomes full-time with full ownership of engineering hiring and product scaling.

We are looking for someone who:

• Has direct experience building and deploying AI-powered tools
• Can take full technical ownership across product, infrastructure, and integrations
• Understands that this is a co-founder role—with shared risk, long-term upside, and no short-term compensation
• Is ready to actively build: write code, integrate APIs, deploy systems, and maintain reliability
• Understands an early stage start-up ecosystem

• Build and iterate MVPs and product prototypes using OpenAI, open-source LLMs, and GenAI APIs
• Own full-stack architecture: infrastructure, backend (Node/Express/Python), frontend (React/Vue), and deployment (VPS, Docker, CI/CD)
• Research and integrate advanced AI models (LLM tuning, embeddings, prompt orchestration, agent workflows, vector stores)
• Evaluate and implement tools for automation, scalability, and observability
• Collaborate closely on product-market fit, technical feasibility, and roadmap prioritization
• Prepare for investor due diligence and co-develop pitch content
• Post-funding: lead hiring, define engineering practices, and scale delivery across products

• 8–10 years in software engineering, with 3+ in technical leadership or managerial roles
• Proven experience with LLMs (OpenAI, Cohere, HuggingFace), RAG pipelines, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, or deployment on cloud/VPS
• Strong understanding of system design, databases, devops, cloud (GCP/AWS/Vultr/OCI), APIs, and frontend integration
• Ability to ship independently with speed and clarity
• Entrepreneurial, self-directed, and willing to take early-stage risks
• Legally authorized to work in Canada and preferably based in Greater Toronto Area
• Clear understanding of startup equity, vesting, and long-term value creation

This is an equity-only role with meaningful co-founder equity (to be discussed and agreed upon).

A standard Founder’s Agreement with 4-year vesting and 1-year cliff will be executed.

This is a co-founder role with direct responsibility for leading all AI and technical development at Saura.

You’ll be building systems that enable small and medium businesses to adopt AI in practical, revenue-impacting ways—transforming how local businesses operate, grow, and compete.

Your work will help shape the foundation of an AI-first ecosystem in Canada, starting from real-world tools to long-term national impact.

If you’re ready to take ownership, drive innovation, and lead from the front—we’re ready to meet you. Apply now.