Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – AI-to-AI Micropayments

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CTO responsible for designing and implementing technical foundation for CIto-UI micropayments. Leading team in developing secure and scalable solutions for distributed and decentralized systems.

Posted 5/15/2026full-timeRemote • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLeadWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Distributed SystemsGoRustSolidityWeb3

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

As the CTO of this initiative, you will design and steward the technical foundation for a machine-native payments layer.
Architect systems, define standards, mentor contributors, and ensure that every engineering decision aligns with our broader strategic direction.
Define the system-level architecture for agent-centric payments, including state channels, settlement layer, agent identity and reputation, wallet layers, plus on/off-ramping solutions.
Translate cryptographic and academic research into secure, performant, and modular protocol components.
Standardize a framework for agent-to-agent and agent-to-service payments, supporting high throughput, privacy, and cost-efficiency.
Lead or advise in the implementation of PoC agents, which can include DeFi data consumers and service access agents.
Define payment flow primitives that support machine coordination, access control, and service gating across decentralized infrastructure.
Define and own the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for the micropayments protocol.
Co-develop the technical roadmap with the CEO, Head of Research and Cryptography team.
Define and prioritize development phases: from concept, prototype, MVP and final product.
Balance rapid product iterations with long-term scalability and integration viability.
Translate research and early-stage concepts into working protocols, interfaces, and dev infrastructure.
Partner with the CEO and Research team to synthesize market opportunity, technical constraints, and user needs into a coherent product vision.
Serve as an internal thought leader and external evangelist.
Establish robust processes for code quality, dev tooling, review, and testing.
Shape the technical team structure; hire, mentor, and align contributors with clearly defined technical goals.
Define and uphold standards for quality, velocity, and engineering excellence, fostering a strong culture of technical ownership, experimentation, and delivery.
Represent Semiotic.AI in research circles, dev conferences, and protocol working groups.
Support fundraising through technical diligence, roadmap presentation, and investor communication.
Coordinate conversations with integration partners, infra providers, and agent protocol developers.

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of experience building distributed systems, ideally with a focus on scalability, protocol engineering, or financial infrastructure.
Comfort with bridging the gap between research and implementation, taking ideas from whitepapers to running systems.
Technical leadership in early-stage environments, preferably within Web3, fintech, or systems infrastructure.
Strong proficiency in Rust or Go, with working knowledge of smart contract development and on-chain execution, ideally in Solidity.
Familiarity with agent-based orchestration frameworks, coordination economies, or embedded AI tools.
Previous experience building payment protocols or protocol abstraction services.
Strong grasp of payment flow architecture, including on-chain/off-chain interactions, cryptographic commitments, state channel design, and wallet infrastructure.
Clear and rigorous communicator; able to guide architectural decisions, explain tradeoffs, and pitch technical visions across stakeholder groups.

Benefits

Comp & perks

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Hard Skills & Tools

RustGosmart contract developmenton-chain executionSolidityprotocol engineeringpayment protocolsstate channel designcryptographic commitmentswallet infrastructure

Soft Skills

technical leadershipclear communicationmentoringstrategic thinkingcollaborationproblem-solvingthought leadershipevangelismorganizational skillsadaptability