Chief Technology Officer

About Synapse Thermal

Synapse Thermal is building the intelligent software layer for datacenter thermal management. Our platform integrates with any HVAC hardware — chillers, CRACs, CRAHs, cooling towers, free-cooling systems — without vendor lock-in, delivering real-time optimization, predictive fault detection, and energy efficiency gains across the datacenter stack. We are racing toward a proof of concept that will define our product roadmap and anchor our first institutional raise.

Datacenters consume over 200 TWh of electricity per year globally, with cooling accounting for up to 40% of that load. Synapse Thermal exists to eliminate that waste through software. We are looking for a CTO who shares that urgency.

The Opportunity

This is a founding CTO role. You will be the technical co-founder who designs and ships our proof of concept — a hardware-agnostic HVAC optimization platform running against real datacenter telemetry. Speed is the mandate. You will build the team, set the architecture, and own every technical decision from day one. There is no bureaucracy. There is a clear target, a tight timeline, and a massive market.

What You Will DoLead the Proof of Concept Delivery

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Own end-to-end architecture and delivery of the Synapse Thermal PoC, targeting integration with at least two HVAC hardware vendors on a live or simulated datacenter environment.

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Define the technical milestones, sprint cadence, and success criteria for the PoC in collaboration with the founders.

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Make fast, pragmatic technology decisions — this is a build-to-validate phase, not a build-for-scale phase.

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Demonstrate tangible results — energy savings, predictive accuracy, uptime improvement — to support the next funding raise.

Design the Hardware-Agnostic Integration Layer

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Architect a vendor-neutral abstraction layer capable of communicating with diverse HVAC systems via BACnet, Modbus, SNMP, REST/API, and proprietary protocols.

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Design for extensibility: new hardware integrations should be addable without re-engineering the core platform.

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Establish data normalization pipelines that unify telemetry from heterogeneous sources into a consistent internal schema.

Build the Optimization and Intelligence Engine

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Develop or integrate real-time control logic for HVAC optimization — setpoint adjustment, load balancing, predictive pre-cooling, and anomaly detection.

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Implement data pipelines to ingest, store, and analyze time-series sensor data at scale.

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Evaluate and select appropriate ML/rules-based approaches for thermal prediction and fault detection.

Own the Technical Roadmap and Team

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Define the architecture that will scale from PoC to production-grade on prem platform.

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Hire and lead the first engineers, establishing coding standards, review processes, and engineering culture.

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Partner with the CEO on technical due diligence, investor presentations, and customer discovery.

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Represent Synapse Thermal’s technical vision to pilots, partners, and prospective enterprise customers.

Key Skills \& Technologies

BACnet / Modbus

Python / Go

Time-Series DBs

HVAC Systems

REST \& gRPC APIs

Edge Computing

IoT / OT Protocols

ML / Anomaly Detection

Cloud Infra (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Docker / Kubernetes

Data Pipelines

Systems Architecture

What We’re Looking ForRequired

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Proven delivery:

Track record of shipping working software fast, ideally in industrial IoT, building management systems, energy tech, or adjacent domains.

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Protocol fluency:

Hands-on experience with BACnet, Modbus, or other building automation / OT protocols. You know what a JACE controller is.

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Integration architecture:

Experience designing hardware-agnostic or multi-vendor integration layers. You’ve dealt with the pain of proprietary APIs and won.

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Data systems:

Comfortable with time-series databases (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or similar) and real-time sensor data pipelines.

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Startup DNA:

You thrive in ambiguity, move fast, and are energized — not paralyzed — by a blank technical slate.

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PoC mentality:

You know the difference between a PoC and a product, and you know how to build one that sells the other.

Highly Valued

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Experience in datacenter operations, colocation, hyperscale, or edge computing environments.

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Familiarity with DCIM platforms (Schneider EcoStruxure, Vertiv, Nlyte, Sunbird) and their limitations.

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Background in thermodynamics, mechanical engineering, or facilities engineering.

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ML/AI experience applied to energy optimization, predictive maintenance, or anomaly detection in physical systems.

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Prior founding or early-stage startup experience (0→1 phase).

Compensation is equity until first raise which is looking like a month or two out.