Technical Co-Founder / CTO – Python & AI

About GURO

GURO Technologies Ltd is an early-stage UK EdTech startup developing GURO, an AI-powered Educational Intelligence platform with the ambition of making high-quality personalised one-to-one learning more accessible and affordable.

Rather than simply providing answers, GURO is being developed to understand where a learner is struggling, identify misconceptions, provide adaptive explanations, check understanding and guide the learner towards mastery.

We have developed a working product and are now entering the next stage: strengthening the technology, validating the product with users, developing pilots and preparing the foundations for growth.

We are looking for a Technical Co-Founder / CTO who wants to build this company with us.

The opportunity

This is not simply a Python developer position.

We are looking for a hands-on technical co-founder who can take ownership of GURO's technology and work closely with the founder to shape the product, architecture and long-term technical strategy.

Initially, you should be comfortable working directly with the existing codebase and writing code yourself. As GURO grows, the role would evolve towards building and leading the engineering function.

What you will do

• Review, understand and improve GURO's existing codebase and architecture.
• Take technical ownership of the platform.
• Design and develop robust, maintainable and scalable Python/backend systems.
• Translate product and business requirements into appropriate technical solutions.
• Build and improve GURO's AI/LLM capabilities.
• Integrate APIs, databases, AI models and third-party services.
• Develop appropriate testing, debugging, monitoring and deployment practices.
• Make architecture and technology-stack decisions based on scalability, reliability, security and cost.
• Help establish strong software engineering standards, documentation and development processes.
• Consider data privacy, security and responsible AI requirements, particularly given GURO's education use case.
• Work closely with the founder on product strategy, customer feedback and technical prioritisation.
• Support technical discussions with potential investors, partners, accelerators and pilot organisations.
• Help recruit and eventually lead GURO's future engineering team.

Core technical capabilities we're looking for

You should have strong practical experience in several of the following areas:

• Python and strong software engineering fundamentals.
• Backend application development and API design/integration.
• Databases, data modelling and application architecture.
• Git/GitHub and collaborative software development.
• Testing, debugging and code quality.
• Cloud deployment and infrastructure.
• Security, authentication and data protection fundamentals.
• Designing maintainable and scalable production systems.

Experience with some of the following would be particularly valuable:

• LLM applications and generative AI.
• AI/ML systems.
• Prompt engineering and structured LLM workflows.
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).
• Agentic/AI-agent architectures.
• Vector databases, embeddings and semantic search.
• LLM evaluation, monitoring, guardrails and reliability.
• OpenAI or other major AI model APIs.
• AWS, Azure or GCP.
• Docker/containers and CI/CD.
• EdTech, adaptive learning or personalised learning systems.

You do not need experience with every technology listed above. Strong engineering fundamentals, the ability to learn quickly and evidence that you can independently solve difficult technical problems matter more to us than ticking every box.

What we're looking for in a co-founder

Technical ability alone is not enough.

We are looking for someone who:

• Wants to build a company, not simply complete assigned development tickets.
• Is comfortable operating in an early-stage environment with uncertainty and changing priorities.
• Can challenge technical and product assumptions constructively.
• Can communicate complex technical decisions clearly to a non-specialist audience.
• Has high standards for engineering quality and takes ownership of outcomes.
• Is willing to remain hands-on while the company is small.
• Has a genuine interest in AI, education and improving access to personalised learning.
• Wants to make a meaningful long-term commitment if there is strong mutual founder fit.

Stage: Early-stage; working product

Location: UK; London preferred, with flexibility for an exceptional candidate

Role: Technical Co-Founder / CTO

Core technology: Python, AI/LLMs, APIs, databases and cloud/backend systems

Compensation and stage

This is an early-stage co-founder opportunity, not a conventional salaried CTO vacancy.

The role is intended to include meaningful founder-level equity, with the exact structure to be discussed based on commitment, responsibilities, experience and mutual fit. A market-rate salary is not currently guaranteed and would be dependent on funding and the company's financial position.

We want to be completely transparent about this from the beginning.

How we'll assess fit

We are interested in what you can build, not simply your job titles or qualifications.

If you are interested, please tell us:

1. What technically challenging products or systems you have personally built.
2. Your strongest areas across Python, backend engineering and AI/LLMs.
3. Your experience taking software from development towards production.
4. Why you are interested in becoming a co-founder rather than taking a conventional engineering role.
5. Why the problem GURO is trying to solve interests you.

Shortlisted candidates will have an initial founder conversation followed by a technical/codebase discussion and a practical exercise before either side makes a long-term commitment.