Software CTO

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced software engineer to own Riverkin’s technical roadmap end-to-end, including working hands-on on the software component. You will take responsibility for creating a reliable client-facing product, which will be mainly an enterprise software that is fed with data (from hardware we build ourselves) and models (which we also build ourselves).

We already have several manufactured sensor prototypes and a software MVP deployed in the field with clients. Now we need someone who can take what exists, challenge it where needed, and define a coherent, scalable path forward with a customer facing approach and without overengineering or starting from scratch unnecessarily.

You should think like a builder, not an optimizer. We need someone who has taken products from 0 to 1 and knows how to move fast without losing track of the overall structure.

Tasks

What You'll Do

Create Clarity and Momentum

• Bring structure to ambiguous problems and drive them to execution
• Make decisions and move forward without waiting for perfect information

Lead, shape and manage the technical team

• You will be a leader and guide the technical team so that everyone has enough context for their work, ownership of their work, and a growth path
• You will decide what to build in-house, where to use external support, and how to keep engineering quality high as the software and sensor deployments scale.

Own the technical roadmap

• Work with the product team to obtain product requirements and translate them into a technical roadmap
• You will align the roadmap with our current stage
• Decide when to iterate, fix or rebuild and explain why
• Create a path to scale and industrialization

Own, Build, and Industrialize the Software Architecture

• Define and build the first customer-facing platform where customers can access, understand and act on our data.

1. Evaluate the current backend and decide what to keep, fix, or redesign (today: a Python backend, AWS provisioned with Terraform, SQLite, and a JavaScript frontend)
2. Make practical decisions on UX, APIs, and structure to get to a usable MVP quickly
3. Lead development of our cloud backend (primarily AWS and GCP based)
4. Build and refine data pipelines from sensor ingestion to usable outputs
5. Not only design, but remain deeply involved in implementation

• Lead debugging and debug yourself
• Find the balance between scalable architecture and pragmatic solutions, aligned with our stage (product and company)
• Bring the final product to commercialization/industrialization

Work with the hydrology and hardware teams

• Translate customer needs in product development direction, both hardware and data side
• You will support the hardware team to bring their hardware to industrialization
• You will lead and define the IP roadmap together with the hardware team
• You will work with the hydrology team to define the model outputs and how to represent the outputs in the software

Who You Are

• You have built and shipped enterprise products from the ground up in a startup or similar environment.
• You are customer facing, translate customer needs into product and architecture decisions.
• You are both a hands-on developer and an architect.
• You have worked closely with hardware-software systems.
• You have strong intuition for pragmatic software architecture at an early stage.
• You can turn messy inputs into clear technical directions.
• You care about building systems that actually work in the real world.
• You communicate clearly with technical and non-technical teammates.

Requirements

Technical Requirements

• Strong experience building cloud-based systems (AWS required)
• Proficient in modern backend development (e.g. Python or Node.js)
• Experience designing and building data pipelines and APIs
• Comfortable building simple frontends for MVPs
• Experience working with real-world data systems (IoT, data platforms, or similar is a strong plus)
• 7 years of experience building and shipping software products
• 3 years of experience managing and leading a team
• Comfortable with infrastructure-as-code (we use Terraform) and SQL

Nice to Have

• Experience building data-as-a-service or analytics platforms
• Previous founder experience

Benefits

Role Details

• Commitment: 100% FTE
• Compensation: competitive base salary plus meaningful equity, depending on experience
• Location: 4 days per week in Zurich office (with one day flexible/remote)
• Starting date: by November 1st 2026 at the latest
• Work-permit: Swiss/EU nationals with a work permit are prioritized since we do not have the capability to sponsor a work permit for third-country candidates
• Relocation: We do not sponsor relocation
• Benefits: 25 days of vacation

About Riverkin

We are a well-capitalized Swiss startup building real-time sensing and data infrastructure for rivers. Our own field-deployed sensors collect live water-level and sediment data, while our platform turns that data into decision-ready insights for customers. We work across two core use cases: hydropower, where better sediment data can support flushing, asset protection and compliance; and flash-flood risk, where local river data can help hydropower, first responders and municipalities understand what is happening before conditions become critical. We are a small, hands-on team working across hydrology models, sensing products, software and market development with real customer deployments.

To apply: If you have them, add links to things you’ve shipped: your Github profile, a portfolio, or a couple of lines on a 0-to-1 product you owned (optional, not required).

Our process has three stages: 1) a screening call, 2) an online 45min interview, and 3) a 2h workshop with the founders on-site in Zurich.

Riverkin is a well-capitalized Swiss startup building real-time sensing and data infrastructure for rivers. Our own field-deployed sensors collect live water-level and sediment data, while our platform turns that data into decision-ready insights for customers. We work across two core use cases: hydropower, where better sediment data can support flushing, asset protection and compliance; and flash-flood risk, where local river data can help first responders and municipalities understand what is happening before conditions become critical. We are a small, hands-on team working across hydrology, hardware, field engineering, software and market development.