The Opportunity

We are addressing a significant pain point within the real estate development and construction industry, a sector ripe for disruption driven by recent advances in foundational AI models and increasing regulatory complexity. From land acquisition to the start of construction, months—and often years—can pass before a project breaks ground. Much of this delay stems from the complex and manual approval process, where navigating and validating compliance across layers of zoning, planning, and building regulations is slow, fragmented, and error-prone. With requirements dispersed across countless documents and jurisdictions, developers face constant risk of oversight, rework, and costly delays.

We are launching an AI-powered platform to help real estate developers and builders accelerate the end-to-end pre-construction regulatory approval process. This platform will leverage recent advances in foundational AI models to understand requirements from regulatory bodies at scale, enabling teams to catch preventable issues early, reduce re-submissions, and shorten approval timelines across jurisdictions—ultimately delivering stronger returns.

As Co-Founder & CTO, you will lead the technical vision of this venture from inception to scale. The CTO will architect and build the core platform, establish a world-class engineering and AI team, and drive the development of a leading system for entitlement intelligence and compliance automation.

This venture is already significantly de-risked: we have early design partners, strong stakeholder validation, and a growing commercial pipeline.

Please note: This is not an employment opportunity at Diagram, but an opportunity in a new company created through our venture studio model.

Who We Are Looking For

We’re assembling a team of entrepreneurs and technologists, and we are now looking for an accomplished Co-Founder & CTO. If you are up for it, you will:

• Define and execute the technical vision and architecture for an AI-first, enterprise SaaS platform
• Build and scale the venture’s core technology and data systems supporting regulatory intelligence and compliance workflows
• Recruit, lead, and mentor a high-caliber engineering and AI team, establishing strong technical culture and standards
• Work closely with the CEO, design partners, and early customers to translate complex regulatory and operational workflows into scalable software
• Make foundational decisions around architecture, infrastructure, data strategy, and system reliability as the platform scales across jurisdictions
• Balance speed and rigor in a 0→1 environment, ensuring the platform earns trust amongst users
• Support technical discussions with enterprise customers, partners, and investors, clearly articulating system capabilities and boundaries

Background & Experience

• Demonstrated success building 0→1 products in early-stage or venture-backed environments
• Proven technical leadership, including hiring and leading high-performing engineering teams
• Experience delivering AI-enabled software products from prototyping through production deployment and iteration
• Familiarity with modern AI architectures, including large language models and systems operating over unstructured data
• Experience working with or applying vision-language models and/or computer vision to real-world, variable inputs
• Ability to design accurate, reliable, and explainable systems in complex environments
• Strong product instincts and ability to collaborate closely with founders, enterprise customers, and investors
• Experience designing and operating cloud-native, secure, enterprise-grade SaaS platforms

What You’ll Get

• A significant equity stake in the venture and meaningful ownership over the company’s technical direction
• A venture already capitalized with a Pre-Seed. Diagram also intends to lead the Seed, and reserves ample capital to participate in future fundraising rounds
• A Diagram-validated concept with strong early commercial traction and engaged design partners
• The opportunity to co-found and build the core technology platform from day one, shaping architecture, systems, and technical culture
• A collaborative founding team and direct access to Diagram and Sagard’s extensive network of operators, investors, and domain experts
• Support with early administrative and operational setup so you can focus on building the product and technology

About Diagram

Diagram’s mission is to create companies that solve meaningful problems. We match vetted ideas with proven entrepreneurs passionate about solving the problem, and partner as a co-founder to support them throughout the journey. Since 2016, Diagram has raised over $400M and has launched and invested in 40+ companies in the Fintech and ClimateTech sectors. Our ecosystem is home to 200+ angel investors and an extended global network of corporate partners, investors, and builders. Diagram is part of Sagard, a global multi-strategy alternative investment platform with over $33B in AUM.

Diagram and its portfolio companies are equal-opportunity employers. Only selected applicants will be contacted for interviews.