Lavendo

Founding CTO, AI Legal Tech (SF Bay Area)

San Francisco · Exec

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 57 days ago

PythonNode.jsFull-Stack DevelopmentAWSGCPCloud PlatformsKubernetesMachine LearningLLMsRAGLangGraphProduct StrategyLeadershipCollaborationMentoring

About the role

You're joining at the inflection point: real product, real customers, seed round closing.
You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with the founding team to define how AI reshapes one of the largest, most underserved verticals in legal services.
If you've been waiting for a founding opportunity where the market is real, the mission matters, and the equity is worth the bet - this is it.

Own and define end-to-end technical architecture of the platform
Architect and scale AI agent infrastructure for legal workflows - billing, financial layers, document automation, collections, and client collaboration
Build and scale the engineering team from scratch - hiring, mentoring, and establishing culture
Partner with founders on product roadmap, fundraising narrative, and company strategy
Ensure security, compliance, and scalability of a document-heavy, regulated-industry platform
Drive rapid iteration cycles and maintain startup velocity through seed close and beyond
Proven experience building AI-native, workflow-heavy, or document-centric SaaS products
As the first technical leader, you'll own the full stack - architecture, AI infrastructure, engineering culture, and execution velocity.
Experience building engineering teams in a 0→1 environment

8+ years of software engineering experience, with 3-5+ years in technical leadership
Proficiency with modern AI/ML stacks: LLMs, RAG, and agentic frameworks (LangChain/LangGraph, OpenAI/Claude APIs)
Strong backend and cloud infrastructure expertise (GCP/AWS, Python, Node.js, Kubernetes)
Experience with document automation platforms

~$4,000/month during the pre-seed phase, with a clear normalization trigger post-seed close
What Makes This Rare:
Co-founder title and seat - not a VP/Director scope with imposed constraints
Real product traction and paying customers before you join
Seed round in progress: $XM already signed
Recognized by TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield and Stanford CodeX FutureLaw

Financially comfortable with a founder salary model during the build phase - equity is the upside
7-10% founder-level equity - significantly above market, reflecting a true founding relationship
Upside is entirely equity-driven, structured for long-term wealth creation

Our client is an early-stage, San Francisco-based AI startup building the operating system for family law.
Their platform automates the most time-intensive parts of legal practice - client intake, financial disclosures, document preparation, case management, and client collaboration - helping family law firms modernize and scale without adding headcount.
Founded in 2025, the company is already working with real customers and actively closing a seed round, with $XM signed to date.
To reduce the emotional and financial burden of divorce for millions of families - and empower the legal professionals who serve them - by transforming a fragmented, manual process into a guided, intelligent, AI-driven experience.
This is a co-founder seat, not a hire.
Lavendo partners with startups and high‑growth companies to help them hire top‑tier sales, GTM, and technical talent.
This role is with one of our clients; we'll share full details about the company and interview process as we get to know you and confirm mutual fit.
Co-founder title and seat - not a VP/Director scope with imposed constraints
Real product traction and paying customers before you join
real product, real customers, seed round closing.

This listing is sourced directly from Lavendo's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.