Chief Technical Officer

This is a co-founder position. You will be the second senior leader at TrueGreenESG, working directly alongside the CEO to ship the product, scale the platform, and build the company.

On the technical side, you own everything: architecture, AI development, engineering culture, security, and infrastructure. On the commercial side, you will be present in conversations with design partners, prospective customers, investors, and eventually government procurement stakeholders. This is a role for someone who wants to be in the room, not just behind the code.

We do not require previous CTO experience. We do require someone who wants to make as much of this role as possible, who will step into the ambiguity, define what the role looks like, and grow with it.

Full-time is preferred. Part-time will be considered for the right person.

Compensation

Compensation is in meaningful equity, and payment once we are revenue generating. Indeed required I put an amount in, but equity and priority once revenue generating is what is offered.

Equity is subject to an agreed vesting schedule: time-based, milestone-based, or a combination. Terms will be discussed openly and early.

What You Will Work On

Building and shipping the product

• Take the existing backend and bring it to pilot-ready then public launch
• Architect and build the marketplace layer connecting companies with ESG solutions providers
• Lead the transition to self-hosted, fine-tuned compliance models - improving accuracy, privacy, and independence
• Ensure audit-ready reports stay current with evolving EU/UK regulatory requirements; this is a core product promise

Scaling with intention

• Extend the EU-sovereign, carbon-negative infrastructure as the platform grows
• Build toward ISO 27001 (roadmap: 2027) and other third-party certifications on the horizon
• Grow and eventually lead an engineering team, starting with one existing technical team member

Being part of the company

• Participate in design partner onboarding and early customer conversations
• Contribute to investor materials and technical due diligence
• Be a credible, present voice in B2B and B2G conversations as the company scales

Do you have a Master's degree?, * You are genuinely curious about how law and regulation shape markets, and you care about helping businesses do right by people and the planet. Not because it is required of you, but because it matters to you

• You believe that businesses acting ethically and businesses saving money are not opposing goals and you want to help prove it
• You are comfortable with constraint. Our infrastructure choices are principled, not accidental. You see them as interesting problems, not obstacles
• You can work in ambiguity, create structure where there is none, and communicate clearly with people who are not engineers

Technical background we are looking for

• Strong backend architecture and API design
• Experience with AI/LLM integration in production, ideally in compliance, legal, or regulated data contexts
• Familiarity with open-source or self-hosted AI models is a strong advantage
• Experience with GDPR-compliant architecture and EU data residency is a strong advantage
• Marketplace or two-sided platform experience is a strong advantage

What is not required

• A background in ESG or sustainability
• Previous CTO title or experience
• Experience with conventional hyperscaler infrastructure, Stage 3 - Collaborative technical task A short, real problem drawn from our stack or roadmap - not a puzzle or a test. This is an opportunity to see how you think and work, and for you to get a genuine sense of the kind of problems you would be solving. Compensation for this stage is something we are open to discussing.

TrueGreenESG is building the compliance infrastructure that mid-market companies in the EU and UK actually need, but have never been able to afford. Right now, a company with 500 employees faces the same mandatory CSRD, SDR, and SFDR obligations as a multinational, but gets quoted £200,000-800,000 by advisory firms to meet them. We deliver regulatory-grade compliance intelligence and audit-ready reporting at SaaS pricing, alongside a marketplace connecting those companies with vetted ESG solutions providers. TrueGreenESG was founded by a climate law researcher (King's College London) who contributed to COP29 climate policy briefings, the UK Methane Report, and won the King's Legal GenAI Hackathon for an ESG compliance prototype. We are supported by the King's College London Accelerator Programme, have a meaningful portion of the backend built, and are preparing for our Q2 2026 pilot with our first design partners. We are now looking for the person who will help us get there, and build everything that comes after. How We Build TrueGreenESG's infrastructure is a values statement as much as a technical one. We are carbon-negative, EU-sovereign, and free from Big Tech dependencies not as marketing, but as a genuine commitment to practising what we help others achieve. Our stack reflects this: * Hosting: GreenGeeks (Netherlands, 300% renewable energy, carbon-negative) * AI: Mistral AI (EU-based, open-source aligned), transitioning to self-hosted fine-tuned models * Version control: Gitea (self-hosted) * Data residency: All data stored in the Netherlands, GDPR-native by design * No AWS, Azure, GCP, or proprietary Big Tech AI We are not looking for someone to redesign these choices. We are looking for someone who shares the thinking behind them and is excited to extend them.