Head of Innovation Technology

Building AI Start-Ups at Pioneer Square Labs
Paraxial Seattle, WA (Hybrid or Remote for exceptional candidates)
Paraxial is building the first AI-native optical design platform, a modern successor to legacy tools like Zemax and Code V. Optical systems drive AR/VR, LiDAR, robotics, aerospace, and biomedical imaging yet the tools used to design them are outdated, slow, and fundamentally incompatible with modern compute and AI.
Were rebuilding the stack from first principles: natural-language spec-to-model, high-performance ray tracing, intelligent design exploration, hybrid AI tolerancing, and CAD-native integration. With hundreds of optical engineers already on the waitlist and enterprise design partners ready to begin pilots, were hiring a CTO to architect and ship the beginning of the platform.
The Role
This is a handson technical leadership role. You will build the first working iteration of Paraxial, make the architectural decisions that define its long-term future, and grow the engineering organization around your technical vision.
What Youll Own
The endtoend architecture of Paraxials early product
Technical decisions across backend, orchestration, data modeling, optimization workflows, and early simulation integration
Interfaces to external engines (ZOSAPI or alternatives) and, eventually, modernized highperformance cores
Early LLM integration workflows
Development of reproducibility, logging, and correctness foundations
Engineering culture, documentation, and hiring the first technical team
Longterm decisions on HPC, GPU, ML, and CAD infrastructure selecting the right tools for the job rather than adhering to a specific stack
What You Bring
Core Technical Strengths
You are a senior/principallevel engineer with deep experience building zerotoone products in technically complex domains. You have strong command over
System design across backend, compute, and data layers
Building and shipping simulationheavy or dataintensive workflows
Working with performancesensitive code, whether in C++, Python, or another modern language
Choosing and integrating the right technology (C++, Python, CUDA, GPU libraries, ML frameworks, rendering engines, etc.) based on constraints
Architecting pipelines that involve optimization, numerical analysis, or scientific computation
Writing pragmatic, reliable code while moving quickly
Product & Execution Strengths
Ability to independently deliver a working product slice in weeks, not quarters
Strong intuition for glueing together APIs, LLMs, numerical code, and UI
Clear communication with nonsoftware domain experts
Bias toward shipping, learning, and iterating
Comfort owning ambiguous, openended problem spaces
Domain Knowledge (Strong Pluses)
Experience with simulation, rendering, robotics, AV, computational physics, or optimization
Exposure to ray tracing, geometric optics, or optical system design
Experience working in AR/VR, imaging, or any hardwareadjacent industry
We do not expect deep optical expertise but curiosity and ability to collaborate closely with optical engineers is essential.
In the First 3060 Days, You Will Work Closely with the CEO and Our Optical Domain Expert to
Stand up core backend services and data models
Build the initial Parametric Optical Model (POM) schema
Implement a pipeline that turns a spec (form or natural language) into an optimized optical system
Integrate with existing engines (ZOSAPI or similar) for design generation and analysis
Build a simple but functional UI for entering specs and reviewing candidate designs
Create the first LLMdriven spec mapper for naturallanguage input
Ensure correctness by working closely with optical domain knowledge
Youll write code every day while also making foundational decisions about system design, performance characteristics, toolchain choices, and longterm architecture.
Why Join Paraxial?
Build the foundational technical architecture of a nextgeneration engineering platform
Work at the intersection of physics, AI, simulation, and human creativity
Direct exposure to real optical engineers shaping the future of hardware
The opportunity to reinvent an entire industrys core tools
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