Technical Lead

Job description

Sekai is building the TikTok for mini apps — an AI-driven consumer platform where people create, remix, share, and play interactive content instantly. We are a Series A company backed by Khosla, a16z, Mayfield, and A*, with $30M raised to date. We are remote-first across all positions and are looking for ambitious, AI-native builders who want to help shape the next generation of consumer social products. Here are Sekai’s download links: - Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=chat.sekai.app&hl=en_US - IOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sekai-create-remix-play/id6504506653 ABOUT THE ROLE We are looking for a Technical Lead to drive technical execution across backend, frontend, mobile, AI, and data. This is not a traditional people-management role. You will act as a technical partner to the founders, product team, and engineering team — turning ambiguous product goals into clear technical plans, unblocking hard engineering problems, and helping us scale the technical team. Our current technical surface includes Python, Go, Next.js, React, React Native, Flutter, native iOS/Android, AI systems, data infrastructure, and recommendation systems. We do not expect deep expertise in every area. In the AI era, we believe strong engineering leaders should be able to use AI tools to quickly ramp up on new languages, frameworks, and codebases. RESPONSIBILITIES - Lead technical execution across backend, frontend, mobile, AI, and data initiatives - Translate ambiguous product goals into clear technical plans, milestones, owners, and trade-offs - Dive deep into hard technical problems and help drive them to resolution - Partner with founders, product, design, and engineering on technical decisions - Coordinate cross-domain engineering work and remove execution blockers - Raise the bar for engineering quality, speed, reliability, and maintainability - Help define hiring needs, role requirements, interview criteria, and technical evaluation standards - Build internal AI workflows and foster an AI-native engineering culture QUALIFICATIONS - 5+ years of professional software engineering experience - Experience leading large-scope technical work across multiple engineers, teams, or product areas - Experience as a Technical Lead, Tech Lead, Engineering Lead, Head of Engineering, CTO, Staff Engineer, or hands-on Engineering Manager - Strong engineering fundamentals and technical judgment across multiple domains - Deep familiarity with AI tools and ability to use AI to augment technical execution and decision-making - Ability to operate under ambiguity and turn unclear goals into executable plans - Strong communication skills with founders, product managers, designers, and engineers - Startup-level ownership, urgency, and willingness to dive into details PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience with agentic AI systems, LLM workflows, AI agents, or AI-assisted product creation - Experience with machine learning, recommendation systems, ranking, experimentation, or data pipelines - Experience building consumer-facing products, mobile products, social platforms, creator tools, or developer tools - Experience in a VC-backed startup or high-growth technology company - Experience hiring, interviewing, or defining technical bars for engineering roles WHAT WE OFFER - Top compensation package, including competitive salary and meaningful equity - Remote-first team - Comprehensive health insurance and benefits If you are excited about building at the frontier of AI, consumer social, and interactive entertainment, we would love to hear from you. At Sekai, you will work with an AI-native team, move fast, own meaningful problems, and have the flexibility to explore new ideas from an early stage.