Chief Technology Officer (CTO) | AI Product Business | Brisbane

Brisbane | Full-Time | Competitive Package

I'm working with a growing Australian AI product business that's looking for a hands-on CTO to help shape the next stage of its growth.

The company is developing an AI-first SaaS platform and is at an exciting stage of its journey, with an established product and ambitious plans for further development and growth.

This isn't a traditional corporate CTO position. The founders are looking for someone who's comfortable in a fast-moving environment, enjoys building technology themselves and wants to play a meaningful role in shaping both the product and the business.

The Role

You'll work closely with the founders to own the technical direction of the business, balancing longer-term architecture and strategy with hands-on engineering.

You'll be responsible for

- Owning the technical roadmap, architecture and engineering strategy as the business scales.
- Remaining hands-on across software development, AI architecture and technical decision-making.
- Leading the development of AI-first products, including LLM integrations, agentic systems and intelligent automation.
- Working closely with the founders on product direction, commercial priorities and customer requirements.
- Building and mentoring the engineering team as the business grows.
- Establishing pragmatic engineering practices around scalability, security, reliability and delivery.
- Evaluating emerging AI technologies and identifying where they can create genuine product value.

What We're Looking For
- Previous experience as a CTO, Head of Engineering, Technical Co-Founder, Founding Engineer or similar.




- Genuine experience working within early-stage startups or scaling product businesses.
- Robust hands-on software engineering background across modern full-stack technologies.
- Commercial experience building and deploying AI-powered products, particularly involving LLMs, AI agents, orchestration or RAG.
- Experience taking products from initial concept through to production and commercial adoption.
- Comfortable working directly with founders, contributing to business decisions and challenging technical/product direction when needed.
- Experience building or leading small engineering teams while remaining close to the code.
- A pragmatic, commercially minded approach to engineering, with an ability to move quickly without overengineering.

Why Consider It?
- Opportunity to take ownership of the technology function within a growing AI business.
- Work directly alongside the founders and have genuine influence over product and company direction.
- Build with modern AI technologies rather than simply integrating AI into an established legacy platform.
- Play a key role in shaping the company's technical strategy, architecture and future engineering team.
- Opportunity to make a significant impact at an important stage of the company's growth.

The ideal person is a builder first and a technology executive second. Someone who's experienced the challenges of growing a startup, understands how to turn AI capabilities into commercially valuable products and still enjoys getting involved technically. If you're currently a CTO, Head of Engineering or senior hands-on technical leader looking for more ownership within an AI-first business, I'd be keen to have a conversation.

Apply directly or reach out to George at Change Recruitment for a confidential discussion.

📌 Chief Technology Officer (Brisbane)
🏢 Change Recruitment
📍 Brisbane