Lead Engineer (CTO Track)

About Sotto Kin

Sotto Kin is an emerging Creative Tech Studio helping e-commerce brands make smarter, ROI-driven decisions on social. The studio operates at the intersection of social media strategy, paid advertising, and custom AI-product development building solutions rooted in real client data and engineered to deliver measurable impact.

The team behind Sotto Kin brings decades of combined experience across marketing, product, engineering, and AI, professionals who have collectively driven 100M+ in AI business value across their careers. Now that expertise is coming together under one roof and in one team to build something of its own.

The team’s client track record includes:

• 45M+ engagements driven across campaigns, coverage in Forbes, and authentic engagement with leaders like Mark Cuban and Wade Cellars.

Sotto Kin doesn’t operate like a traditional agency. With an emphasis on creativity, Sotto deals in the art of possible, redefining what that means. The team embeds with clients, co-creates with their internal teams, and builds proprietary technology that keeps them three steps ahead of the market.

The Opportunity

The internal tools built to power client work have outgrown the agency model. Sotto Kin is now moving to productize its core technology and is looking for a lead engineer to help build it the right way.

This is a founding engineering role with a clear path to CTO. The right candidate won’t be inheriting someone else’s vision, they’ll help define ours.

What You’ll Do

Product & Technical Leadership

• Own the overall technical architecture and ensure it scales with product growth
• Make final decisions on tech stack, tools, infrastructure, and engineering standards
• Translate product vision from the CPO and CEO into executable technical roadmaps
• Identify and resolve technical debt before it becomes a launch or performance risk

Engineering Execution

• Lead development and ensure sprint milestones are met on schedule
• Write, review, and approve code across the core platform
• Manage all third-party API integrations
• Own QA: testing pipelines, bug triage, and resolution before customer-facing releases

Team & Collaboration

• Work closely with the CPO to align engineering output with product priorities
• Partner with the UX/UI Lead to implement designs accurately and flag technical constraints early
• Communicate blockers, risks, and timeline changes proactively
• Document systems and processes so the codebase is never a black box

Security, Compliance & Infrastructure

• Ensure the platform meets data privacy standards (GDPR, CCPA where applicable)
• Own AWS infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and uptime/monitoring
• Maintain secure handling of all merchant and social data

Growth & Scaling

• Build with scale in mind, all architecture decisions should support long-term growth

What We’re Looking For

• Strong full-stack or backend engineering background (Java, Node.js / TypeScript, React)
• Hands-on experience with AWS infrastructure and cloud-native architecture — AWS is core to our build
• Experience building data-intensive or API-driven products
• Familiarity with AI/ML integrations, social platform APIs, or e-commerce ecosystems is a strong plus
• Comfort operating in an early-stage, zero-to-one environment
• A builder mentality, seeking ownership, not just a title
• Someone who moves fast, communicates clearly, and is outcomes-driven

What This Role Is (and Isn’t)

This is:

• A founding-level opportunity with meaningful equity
• A chance to build something from the ground up alongside a team with the experience to back it
• A role where your technical decisions will help to shape the company vision

This is not:

• A passive contractor engagement
• A role for someone who needs heavy direction
• A short-term sprint, Sotto Kin is building for the long game

Compensation

• Equity stake structured for a true founding-level partner
• Evolves into a full-time, market-rate salary, increasing incrementally as the company hits revenue and fundraising milestones.
• Long-term upside tied to product growth, revenue milestones, and exit

Why Now

Our team brings deep client relationships, sharp market insight, and professionals who have collectively driven 100M+ in AI business value across their careers. Now we’re channeling that experience into building something of our own and we’re looking for the right technical mind to build it with us.

For a builder who wants to get in at the ground floor, with a team that knows how to execute, this is that opportunity.

To Apply

Send a note to [email protected] with:

• Resume and insight into previous projects you’ve built
• Why this role is the right fit
• Links to relevant work, GitHub, or portfolio