Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

- Equity Partner -

Location: Remote (USA/CAN preferred)

Department: Technology & Engineering

Jurisdiction: Global / Distributed Team

Time Commitment: Up to 20 hours/week (initially)

Reports To: CEO / COO

Scope: Engineering Strategy, Platform Architecture, Blockchain (L1/L2) & Protocol Design, Delivery, Reliability, AI/ML Strategy (practical integration), Key Hiring & Team Design, Technical Due Diligence & Investor Support, DevOps, Security, Technical Standards & Culture.

What You Put in Is What You Get Out

This is not a standard employment offer. It's a stake as a founding equity-partner where you trade traditional salary today for meaningful ownership now, with cash compensation becoming available later as we hit predefined revenue and fundraising milestones.

When you commit with us, we commit to you with real ownership, accountability, and meaningful influence over what gets shipped. Upon us achieving key milestones, compensation evolves. If you’re ready to shape something groundbreaking, this is it.

Time & Focus Expectation

This role requires consistent, focused contribution alongside your existing work schedule. Expect approximately up to 20 hrs/week.

We’re optimizing for steady momentum, not sporadic availability. Our goal is to move with intensity, clarity, and focus building steadily while making decisions that compound. If you don’t have that dedicated bandwidth this is not for you.

Personal Attributes We Value

We’re looking for someone who is:

• Passionate about building and shipping
• Emotionally intelligent and strong in collaboration under pressure
• Exceptional problem solver who can navigate ambiguity
• Detail-oriented with high standards for quality
• Self-motivated and proactive (low hand-holding)

Compensation Structure

• Early builder / equity partner role, compensated exclusively through equity participation during the initial phase.
• No guaranteed cash compensation at the start.
• Equity-first structure with vesting aligned to long-term value creation.
• Token incentives may be introduced in the future, subject to regulatory approval and compliance.
• Salary eligibility begins once predefined revenue and/or fundraising milestones are achieved.
• Remote work, flexible scheduling, and access to internal programs, tools, and events.

Role Overview

As Chief Technology Officer, you are the technical authority and hands-on architect for Anime Universe’s platform future. You’ll define the architecture that powers our global entertainment ecosystem from our Infinite verse platform to our proprietary technology stack including our framework and a Layer 1 / Layer 2 blockchain design. In this role you will set direction, make decisive architectural calls, and personally drive execution on the most critical systems. You’ll partner closely with the VP of Software Engineering (who owns delivery, reliability, team scaling, and engineering operations) so that your vision becomes shipped reality at high velocity without sacrificing security, performance, or long-term scalability.

CTO + VP Partnership Model (How This Leadership Duo Wins)

CTO owns:

• The technical north star, core architecture, and protocol decisions
• The blockchain / L1-L2 design strategy and security assumptions
• The “build vs buy” framework and the path to proprietary technology
• The hiring bar for principal-level engineers and architects
• Executive technical communication (founder alignment + investor readiness)

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VP of Software Engineering owns:

• End-to-end delivery execution, reliability, and engineering operations
• Team formation at scale, dev workflows, KPIs, and shipping cadence
• SRE discipline, incident readiness, and performance SLIs
• Cross-team coordination and consistent output across squads

What You’ll Own

Platform Architecture

• Define the target architecture and reference implementations for platform services, data flows, APIs, identity, and scalability.
• Ensure performance, resilience, and cost discipline as we scale.
• Set standards for system design, engineering quality, and production readiness.

Blockchain / Protocol Architecture (Core Requirement)

• Lead the architecture strategy for Layer 1 and Layer 2 components and integration.
• Define the security model, trust assumptions, upgrade strategy, and scalability approach.
• Drive technical design for creator protection layers and chain/platform interoperability patterns.
• Ensure the blockchain is used where it creates product value — not as a buzzword tax.

Cloud & Infrastructure (GCP is mandatory)

• Own the cloud foundation on Google Cloud Platform (networking, deployments, IAM, data, observability).
• Establish architecture patterns that scale securely: multi-env setup, secrets/key management, access control, auditing.
• Align infra strategy with delivery velocity (you enable shipping; you don’t block it).

Security & Trust Posture

• Set the security posture from day one: threat modeling, secure SDLC, hardening standards, risk management.
• Ensure privacy, safety, and compliance are engineered into the platform foundation.

Technical Leadership & Hiring Bar

• Build the senior technical bench: principal engineers, protocol engineers, security engineers, platform architects.
• Mentor engineering leads; establish a culture that rewards clarity, shipping, and high standards.

Founder + Investor Support

• Translate product vision into a technical story investors can respect (without fluff).
• Support technical diligence, architecture reviews, and roadmap credibility.

What We’re Looking For

• Product-focused mindset: you align tech decisions with user impact.
• Strong leadership: you elevate the team and foster a culture of ownership.

Core Profile

• A hands-on systems architect who can lead and still dive into hard problems.
• Comfortable operating in high ambiguity with high accountability.
• Strong written communicator (async-native leadership is required).

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• Proven experience building and scaling complex, high-traffic platforms.

Deep Technical Strength (Must-Have)

• Distributed systems, scalability patterns, data architecture, and production reliability fundamentals.
• Security instincts that are practical and enforceable.
• Ability to design systems that evolve from “scrappy” to “world-class” without burning down momentum.

Blockchain / L1-L2 Expertise (Must-Have)

• Deep blockchain expertise (protocol design, L1/L2 scaling, security).
• Very strong grasp of protocol tradeoffs: performance, cost, security, upgradeability.
• Ability to reason through L1/L2 architectures and integration patterns.
• Experience shipping or leading blockchain/protocol systems in real environments (not just research).
• Has built and engineered fully proprietary technology

GCP Mastery (Must-Have)

• Strong experience with GCP architecture: IAM, networking, compute, storage, observability, CI/CD integration, cost controls.
• Mastery of GCP (Google Cloud Platform) for infrastructure, deployment, and scaling.

Programming Strength (Must-Have)

• Build with Hands-on coding excellence: Rust, Go, and modern web tech
• Systems-level engineering strength (Rust must-have; and/or Go, 3js, javascripts; equivalent depth accepted).
• Ability to review, guide, and occasionally implement critical-path code.

Bonus

• Practical AI/ML integration experience (product-facing or infrastructure integration).
• Experience designing developer platforms, SDKs, tooling, or automation that multiplies team output.

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years engineering experience with significant architecture ownership (startup and/or scale-up preferred).
• Proven track record leading high-impact technical decisions that shipped into production.
• Demonstrated ability to build and lead distributed teams in remote/async environments.
• Strong evidence of blockchain/protocol depth (portfolio, shipped work, technical writing, or credible references).

Our Promise

At Anime Universe, you’ll join a crew that values fun, teamwork, autonomy, innovation, and measurable impact.

We commit to:

• Amplify Your Voice: A flat structure where your technical vision directly informs our product roadmap and, when appropriate, our investor’s narrative.
• Celebrate Wins Loudly: From hackathons to global demos, we spotlight engineering breakthroughs and the people behind them.
• Foster Connection: Work with a tight-knit, globally distributed team that communicates well, moves fast, and supports each other.

You’ll help shape how we build and scale technically and culturally. As we reach defined revenue and fundraising milestones, compensation evolves accordingly. If you want to build something extraordinary from the ground up, you’ll be in the right seat.

Please note: We will conduct a background check, including verification of work history, references, and technical competency, prior to onboarding.