Founding Product Delivery & Platform Lead

Founding Product Delivery & Platform Lead AI-Native Cybersecurity SaaS | Product Engineering, Platform Delivery & Commercial Readiness Company: Kodaowl, Inc. Location: Remote — United States Engagement: Part-Time / Contract Level: Senior Technical Leadership Reports To: Founder & CEO Growth Opportunity: Potential transition to a broader or full-time leadership position as the company scales About Kodaowl Decide with Evidence. Act with Confidence. Kodaowl, Inc. is an early-stage cybersecurity technology company building an AI-native exposure and risk intelligence platform designed to help organizations understand, prioritize, and reduce cybersecurity risks. Modern organizations face fragmented security tools, overwhelming vulnerability data, limited visibility into their attack surfaces, and uncertainty about which exposures require immediate attention. Kodaowl is developing a unified cybersecurity platform that brings together: • Cyber asset discovery and security asset intelligence • Vulnerability assessment and exposure management • Attack surface visibility and security scanning • Threat and vulnerability intelligence • Risk-based vulnerability prioritization • Remediation management and validation • AI-powered security analysis and decision support • Evidence-based reporting and continuous security assurance Our vision is to transform fragmented technical findings into actionable intelligence that enables security teams and business leaders to make informed decisions and prioritize meaningful security improvements. Our initial commercial focus is on small and midsize organizations, with opportunities to expand into managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), and larger enterprise markets. Kodaowl is building a lean, execution-focused engineering organization to bring its platform to market and establish a foundation for scalable SaaS operations. The Opportunity Kodaowl is seeking an experienced, hands-on Founding Product Delivery & Platform Lead to coordinate and drive the development, integration, and commercialization readiness of its cybersecurity SaaS platform. This is a founding technical leadership opportunity for someone who combines strong software engineering knowledge, product delivery experience, cybersecurity platform understanding, and the ability to coordinate multidisciplinary engineering activities. The successful candidate will work directly with the Founder & CEO and collaborate with application engineers, AI engineers, cloud infrastructure specialists, and the Founding Go-to-Market Lead. You will be responsible for translating product objectives into actionable engineering plans, coordinating execution, managing dependencies, maintaining delivery accountability, and ensuring the platform is secure, reliable, scalable, and ready to support paying customers. The central objective is to transform Kodaowl's existing product capabilities into a commercially operational, enterprise-ready SaaS platform while maintaining a practical, cost-conscious approach to development. This is not a traditional project management position. The role requires sufficient technical depth to evaluate architecture, challenge engineering assumptions, identify delivery risks, review technical decisions, and guide engineering teams toward production-quality outcomes. Key Responsibilities 1. Product Delivery & Engineering Leadership • Own and coordinate the execution of Kodaowl's product delivery roadmap. • Translate business objectives, product requirements, and customer needs into prioritized engineering deliverables. • Establish practical development plans, milestones, release schedules, and acceptance criteria. • Coordinate application development, AI engineering, cybersecurity engineering, cloud infrastructure, and platform operations. • Maintain a structured product backlog and prioritize commercially important capabilities. • Track engineering progress, dependencies, technical risks, and delivery commitments. • Establish accountability across internal engineers, contractors, and technical partners. • Facilitate technical planning, engineering reviews, and release-readiness discussions. • Identify development bottlenecks and recommend corrective actions. • Provide clear, concise progress updates to the Founder & CEO. • Ensure engineering activities remain aligned with commercialization objectives and available resources. 2. Platform Architecture & Technical Coordination • Coordinate technical architecture and implementation decisions across the platform. • Promote scalable, maintainable, secure, and cost-efficient cloud-native SaaS design. • Review critical architectural decisions involving applications, databases, APIs, integrations, and infrastructure. • Ensure consistent engineering standards, documentation, code review, and development practices. • Support implementation of CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, infrastructure as code, and secure software development practices. • Coordinate development and integration across distributed engineering teams. • Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions involving scanners, data sources, and supporting platform services. • Identify technical debt, architectural limitations, and scalability risks. • Collaborate with cloud engineers to optimize infrastructure utilization, operational efficiency, and cost. The role is expected to provide technical leadership and coordination rather than independently implement every platform component. 3. Cybersecurity Platform Development Lead and coordinate engineering delivery across Kodaowl's core cybersecurity capabilities. Asset Discovery & Security Intelligence • Asset discovery, inventory, classification, and enrichment • Infrastructure, network, cloud, application, and API asset visibility • Asset relationships, ownership, and business context • Integration of security evidence from multiple sources Vulnerability & Exposure Management • Infrastructure and network vulnerability assessment • Web application and API security assessment • Cloud and container security assessment • Attack surface management (ASM) • Exposure identification, correlation, and prioritization • Risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) • Continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) Threat & Risk Intelligence • CVE and vulnerability intelligence integration • CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) • Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) • Threat intelligence enrichment and correlation • Contextual risk scoring and prioritization • Security analytics and executive reporting Remediation & Validation • Remediation recommendations and workflow management • Findings tracking, prioritization, and lifecycle management • Risk acceptance and exception handling • Remediation validation and evidence-based reporting • Integration with relevant customer workflows and ticketing systems Security Data & Integrations • Third-party security scanner integrations • Cloud provider and security platform APIs • Security data ingestion, normalization, and deduplication • Canonical asset and finding models • Secure API integration and extensibility Ensure that security findings can be translated into explainable, prioritized, and actionable customer intelligence. 4. AI, LLM & Agentic AI Platform Delivery Coordinate the development and integration of Kodaowl's AI-native cybersecurity capabilities. • Translate AI-related product objectives into actionable engineering requirements. • Coordinate development of AI-assisted security analysis, evidence correlation, and risk prioritization. • Support integration of Large Language Models (LLMs), Generative AI, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) where commercially and technically appropriate. • Evaluate opportunities for AI agents, intelligent automation, and agentic security workflows. • Coordinate AI-assisted remediation recommendations and security decision-support capabilities. • Establish requirements for AI accuracy, explainability, reliability, and evidence-based responses. • Ensure appropriate human oversight for consequential security recommendations and actions. • Coordinate secure handling of customer data within AI workflows. • Address tenant isolation, access controls, prompt-injection risks, and sensitive information protection. • Evaluate AI infrastructure costs, model consumption, and operational efficiency. • Work with AI engineers to establish practical testing, validation, and quality controls. The objective is to deliver reliable, secure, and commercially valuable AI capabilities rather than introducing AI technologies without demonstrated customer value. 5. Multi-Tenant SaaS Platform & Cloud Readiness Coordinate engineering activities required to operate Kodaowl as a secure, scalable, multi-tenant SaaS platform. Key areas include: • Multi-tenant application architecture • Tenant isolation across application, database, API, and AI components • Identity and access management • Role-based access control (RBAC) • Customer onboarding and tenant provisioning • Subscription lifecycle management • Asset entitlements and feature access controls • Integration with billing and payment systems • Secure API access and authentication • Platform monitoring, logging, and observability • Performance, reliability, and scalability • Backup, recovery, and operational continuity • Cloud resource utilization and cost optimization • Secure customer data handling and retention • Future MSP/MSSP multi-customer management capabilities Collaborate with cloud infrastructure specialists to ensure the platform supports customer growth without unnecessary infrastructure complexity or expense. 6. Product Quality, Security & Operational Readiness Establish practical engineering processes to support production-quality software and reliable SaaS operations. • Coordinate functional, integration, security, and performance testing. • Establish release-readiness criteria and quality assurance practices. • Ensure critical defects and security vulnerabilities are identified and addressed. • Coordinate secure software development lifecycle practices. • Support code quality, dependency management, and software supply chain security. • Establish appropriate logging, monitoring, alerting, and incident-response procedures. • Coordinate backup and disaster recovery planning. • Ensure customer-facing functionality is tested before production release. • Support security documentation, audit logging, and customer security requirements. • Identify compliance readiness needs, including potential SOC 2 requirements as the business grows. • Promote operational reliability and continuous improvement. Because Kodaowl is a cybersecurity company, the security and reliability of its own platform are fundamental to customer trust. 7. Commercialization & Customer Readiness Work closely with the Founder & CEO and Founding Go-to-Market Lead to align product delivery with commercial requirements. • Identify technical capabilities necessary to support initial paying customers. • Coordinate technical preparation for product demonstrations and customer onboarding. • Translate customer feedback into prioritized product improvements. • Support subscription packaging, asset limits, feature entitlements, and billing integration requirements. • Ensure customer-facing capabilities accurately reflect implemented functionality. • Coordinate resolution of technical issues affecting customer adoption. • Support integration requirements for customer environments. • Maintain product documentation, release notes, and technical enablement materials. • Help establish repeatable onboarding and support processes. • Ensure technical commitments remain achievable within available engineering capacity. The Founding Go-to-Market Lead will own commercial positioning, pricing recommendations, customer acquisition, and sales execution. This role will own engineering delivery coordination and technical product readiness. 8. Engineering Team Coordination & Development • Lead and coordinate engineers across application development, AI, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. • Establish clear technical responsibilities, deliverables, and ownership boundaries. • Promote collaboration, knowledge sharing, and consistent engineering practices. • Review engineering progress and ensure accountability for assigned work. • Identify technical resource gaps and recommend appropriate staffing. • Participate in technical interviews and candidate assessments when required. • Coordinate external engineering contractors and technical service providers. • Help establish an efficient engineering operating model suitable for a lean startup. • Encourage practical innovation while maintaining delivery discipline, security, and product quality. Required Qualifications • Approximately 8+ years of relevant experience in software engineering, technical product management, platform engineering, engineering leadership, or technical product delivery. • Demonstrated experience delivering cloud-native SaaS applications into production. • Strong understanding of modern application architectures, APIs, databases, distributed systems, and cloud technologies. • Experience coordinating multidisciplinary engineering teams and managing complex technical dependencies. • Ability to translate product requirements and business objectives into engineering plans and deliverables. • Strong knowledge of software development methodologies, Agile delivery practices, and release management. • Experience with engineering quality assurance, testing, CI/CD, and secure development practices. • Ability to evaluate technical architecture, identify engineering risks, and challenge implementation assumptions. • Strong communication, technical leadership, and stakeholder management skills. • Ability to operate independently and manage delivery responsibilities in an early-stage startup environment. • Demonstrated commitment to delivering working software and measurable business outcomes. A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related discipline is desirable; equivalent practical experience will also be considered. Strongly Preferred Qualifications Cybersecurity Platform Experience Experience developing, delivering, or operating cybersecurity platforms involving: • Vulnerability management and security scanning • Exposure management and attack surface management • CTEM and risk-based vulnerability management • Cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) • Threat intelligence and vulnerability intelligence • Cloud security and security analytics • Remediation management and validation Experience with established or emerging cybersecurity technology providers is valuable, particularly where it demonstrates direct involvement in building scalable security products. AI, LLM & Intelligent Systems • Experience delivering AI-enabled enterprise applications. • Understanding of Generative AI, LLMs, RAG, and Agentic AI architectures. • Familiarity with AI orchestration, intelligent automation, and agent-based workflows. • Understanding of AI evaluation, reliability, explainability, and governance. • Experience coordinating AI engineers and integrating AI capabilities into SaaS products. • Familiarity with AI infrastructure costs and model consumption management. Cloud & Platform Engineering Familiarity with technologies and architectures such as: • AWS and cloud-native infrastructure • Python and FastAPI • PostgreSQL and relational databases • Docker and containerized applications • Kubernetes and container orchestration • CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code • API-first and event-driven architectures • Secure multi-tenant SaaS design • Observability and platform monitoring • Security data platforms and integrations Startup & Product Commercialization • Experience bringing emerging software products from development into commercial production. • Experience establishing engineering processes and delivery practices in early-stage organizations. • Ability to balance technical excellence with cost, time, and business priorities. • Experience supporting customer onboarding and early product adoption. • Familiarity with scaling SaaS platforms as customer demand increases. Work Arrangement & Compensation • Engagement: Part-Time / Contract • Location: Remote — United States • Schedule: Flexible, with availability for engineering coordination and leadership discussions • Compensation: Based on experience, responsibilities, and agreed scope of engagement • Performance Incentives: May be considered based on agreed delivery and business objectives • Equity: May be considered for an exceptional candidate, subject to separate agreement and applicable approvals • Growth Opportunity: Potential transition to a broader or full-time technical leadership position as the business scales Kodaowl is an early-stage company operating with a lean, cost-conscious development model. We value professionals who can prioritize critical deliverables, coordinate effectively across engineering disciplines, and make practical decisions that balance technical quality with commercial objectives. Why Join Kodaowl? Shape the product and platform. Help guide the development and commercialization of an AI-native cybersecurity platform. Meaningful technical leadership. Influence engineering priorities, platform architecture, product quality, and delivery execution. Work directly with the founder. Collaborate closely with the Founder & CEO and technical contributors. Build a scalable SaaS business. Help establish the engineering foundation for customer acquisition, recurring revenue, and long-term growth. Work on advanced cybersecurity and AI capabilities. Contribute to the development of exposure intelligence, risk prioritization, intelligent security analysis, and evidence-based remediation. Opportunity for expanded leadership. As Kodaowl grows, the role may evolve into a broader technical leadership position. How to Apply Interested candidates are encouraged to apply directly through Wellfound. Candidates are encouraged to highlight experience involving: • Cloud-native SaaS product delivery • Cybersecurity platform engineering • AI, LLM, or intelligent systems integration • Multi-tenant SaaS architecture • Engineering leadership and coordination • Commercial product launches Please also include your part-time availability and compensation expectations. Selection Process Our anticipated selection process includes an initial discussion with the Founder & CEO, a review of relevant technical leadership and delivery experience, and a technical discussion involving product architecture, engineering coordination, and commercialization readiness. Additional discussions with engineering contributors and professional reference checks may be included as appropriate. Kodaowl is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic.