About the Role
The CTO owns the technology stack of Frontier Husbandry. The farm’s core asset is data — a permanent, instrumented commercial operation that generates commercial-grade evidence faster and cheaper than anyone else in the industry. You’ll build the AI-native monitoring and data infrastructure that makes that possible, and you’ll run the pipeline that evaluates, integrates, and matures the technologies we test.
The job is not to build every sensor and model from scratch; it’s to make smart build-vs-buy-vs-partner calls, integrate best-in-class components into a coherent system, and get us to a data foundation we can trust. The stack spans AI, machine vision, sensing, hardware, biology, and data infrastructure — nobody is expert in all of it, so much of this job is knowing precisely where your own expertise ends and pulling in the right people at that boundary.
This is a full-time exempt remote position. However, the CTO must have the capability to travel to the location of the farm (location TBD) as much as is necessary.
Responsibilities
- Own the farm’s technology strategy: the AI-native monitoring and data infrastructure (cameras, sensors, bird-level tracking, environmental telemetry) that is the backbone for every trial we run.
- Make build/buy/partner decisions across the tech stack — including hardened hardware that survives real barn conditions — and integrate components into one coherent, reusable system rather than a pile of point solutions.
- Work with the Program Team to build the pipeline of external technologies we test (robotics, computer vision, vaccines, feed additives, etc.) — assess readiness, design the integration, and render clear go/no-go judgments.
- Build the data platform and standards so results are clean, comparable, and reusable across trials.
- Build the technical team. Make the first engineering and data hires and set the bar for them, decide what we hold in-house versus contract or partner for, and convene the outside expertise we don’t have — veterinary and welfare scientists, statisticians, specialist engineers.
- Understand and interface with the systems already in a working barn (control units, feed lines, ventilation) and lead the technical side of infrastructure upgrades.
- Partner closely with the Program Team and the Operations Lead so the data infrastructure actually answers the biological and welfare questions that matter, and with integrators and technology partners to keep the platform credible.
- Own our IP strategy on the technology side: identify genuinely novel inventions that come out of the farm and file patents opportunistically, and manage licensing and ownership terms with technology partners.
About You
- Stellar technical leadership. A track record of building real systems that work in the physical world — AI/ML, computer vision, sensor/IoT platforms, robotics, or data infrastructure — including hardware deployed in harsh or uncontrolled environments.
- Calibrated across a wide stack. You have genuine depth in at least one core area, and you accurately know where that depth ends. At the boundary your instinct is to go find the right expert rather than improvise — and you can write a spec sharp enough to tell when the specialist you brought in is wrong.
- AI-native. You design from the assumption that AI and data are the foundation, not an add-on. You keep up to date with the latest AI and physical AI developments.
- A team builder. You’ve hired and led small technical teams, and you know the first few hires set the ceiling for everyone after them.
- Commercial, not just academic. You’ve shipped technology in a commercial setting and you know the difference between a demo and something that runs reliably every cycle at scale.
- Rigorous and fast. You hold a high bar but optimize relentlessly for action-relevant answers. You’d rather stand up a solid data foundation this quarter than architect the perfect platform over two years.
- A fast learner of new domains, who wants to be on the farm. You don’t need a poultry background, but you do need to get up to speed on broiler production and welfare quickly, and earn the trust of people who’ve spent their careers in it.
- Mission-aligned. You are deeply aligned with our mission to improve animal health and welfare through technology. You understand and buy into our unique theory of change, and are excited by the opportunity to push it forward.
