Chief Technology Officer

Fractional CTO and Technical Co-founder
About Anima People
Anima People builds PsycSec, a human risk management platform for organisations that want to understand and reduce insider risk. Most security tools measure what people click. PsycSec measures why they act as they do.
The platform is built on pAth, our psychometric methodology. pAth draws on organisational psychology, neuroscience and cognitive behavioural principles to assess motivation, demotivation and counterproductive behaviour. Clients get aggregate, privacy preserving insight they can act on, without surveilling individuals.
Our work brings together expertise in security, organisational psychology and data science.
Where we are going
PsycSec is entering its next stage of growth: enterprise deployments, a seed round and expansion into the US. You will join our engineering and data science team.
Our stack is TypeScript and JavaScript, React and Next.js, Node.js and PostgreSQL.
The role
You will own Anima People's technology strategy and delivery, and make sure PsycSec meets the security, privacy and reliability expectations of enterprise clients as we scale. You will be responsible for:
Architecture and roadmap. Setting the technical direction and owning architecture decisions.
Cloud and infrastructure. Running secure, resilient infrastructure on AWS or Azure, built as code.
Privacy and security by design. Keeping data protection and security at the centre of how the platform handles assessment data.
Scoring engine. Working with our data science lead on how the pAth model is delivered, versioned and tested.
Enterprise integration. Single sign on and integration with client environments.
Engineering practice. Code review, CI/CD, security testing and release management.
Team. Leading and growing the engineering team, and deciding where to hire, contract or buy.
Beyond the pilot
As a co-founder you will shape the company, not only the code:
Own the product and technology roadmap with the leadership team.
Lead technical due diligence and investor conversations for the seed round.
Prepare the platform for US expansion, including SOC 2, US privacy law and data residency.
Build and lead the engineering team as we grow.
What you bring
Essential
You have been technically accountable for a production SaaS product that handled sensitive personal data, ideally B2B and enterprise.
You are hands on enough to review code and do critical work yourself in TypeScript or JavaScript, React or Next.js, Node.js and PostgreSQL.
You have deployed and run systems on AWS or Azure using infrastructure as code (Terraform or similar) and CI/CD.
You have applied GDPR in practice: privacy by design, data protection impact assessments and data processing agreements.
You have implemented enterprise single sign on (SAML or OpenID Connect).
You have led a small engineering team, including mentoring developers.
You can work at least [X] hours a day within 09:00 to 18:00 CET and communicate clearly in written English.
Desirable
Experience in HR technology, people analytics, psychometrics or security products.
Putting data science or machine learning models into production.
ISO 27001 or SOC 2 preparation.
Startup fundraising, technical due diligence or the US market.
Previous founder or first technical hire experience.
A degree in computer science or engineering is welcome but not required. Equivalent experience counts.
How to apply
Send your CV or LinkedIn profile to admin@animapeople.com by 20 October 2026, with short answers to these questions:
Describe a production system handling sensitive personal data that you were technically accountable for. What was it, at what scale, and what was your role?
How would you scale a platform that processes sensitive employee data for enterprise clients, and what would you refuse to compromise on?
Have you deployed to AWS or Azure using infrastructure as code? Which, and what did you build?
How many days a week can you commit, and from when?
What mix of equity and cash do you expect before and after the seed round?
Share a link to code, an architecture write up or a technical reference we can speak to.
Shortlisted candidates will have an initial 30 minute call, followed by a technical session with our team.

Work arrangement
Yes