Founding Tech Lead (Dual Use Defence & Health-tech) - Tricorder
About this role
Build the operating system for healthcare beyond the hospital
Most healthcare technology assumes a hospital: reliable power, connectivity, a data centre down the corridor and a clinician at a desk. Care increasingly happens somewhere else - in the field, in transit, in remote and contested environments, and in the critical minutes before a patient ever reaches a ward.
Tricorder is building the deployable clinical infrastructure for that world: a rugged, self-contained hardware and software platform for clinical teams to capture, monitor and act on patient data anywhere, even when networking or the grid can't be relied on.
We are building this from scratch inside Founders Factory's studio, with a dedicated pre-seed investment, hands-on studio support across product, design, talent and growth, and a six-month build programme to get from concept to a fundable, in-market product. This venture has secured a major European industrial partner to provide hardware, sandbox testing, RnD capabilities. The founding CEO is already in place. We are now looking for the technical other half of the founding team.
The role
You will be the founding Tech Lead. This is a builder's role before it becomes a management role. In the early studio days you will be hands-on across hardware and software, making pragmatic architectural calls under real uncertainty, and turning a concept and early customer conversations into a working, demonstrable product.
You'll work hand in hand with the founder & CEO on product direction, pilot deployments, and technical documentation for future funding rounds. You will be responsible for defining the initial technology stack and building the core engineering team.
What you'll own
You will have end-to-end responsibility for:
System Integration: Working with integrated sensing, edge computing, and building out data synchronization layers to complete an OS.
Architectural Design: Building resilient systems for environments with intermittent connectivity and power constraints.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring alignment with medical device regulations, data protection standards, and quality management frameworks.
Product Validation: Delivering functional prototypes for clinical pilots and investor demonstrations.
Team Leadership: Recruiting and managing the initial engineering team as the company scales.
What we're looking for
We're looking for a rare combination: someone who can build hardware and regulated software together, and who wants to do it as a founder rather than an employee.
Strong candidates will bring most of the following:
A track record of shipping real products, ideally spanning both physical devices and the software that runs on and around them. You’ve taken something from prototype to something people actually use, not just research or internal demos.
Depth in one or more of: embedded systems / firmware, sensors and signal acquisition, edge compute, or connected-device architecture.
Experience building in a regulated, high-trust domain: health-tech, medical devices, defence, or a comparable safety-critical field, and comfort with the standards and evidence that come with it (e.g. clinical safety, data protection, medical-device / quality management frameworks).
Pragmatism and speed at the earliest stage: you make good build-vs-buy calls, ship, and are comfortable with ambiguity and imperfect information.
Founder wiring: you want ownership and equity, you can carry the technical story with clinical users and investors, and you can hire and raise the bar without slowing everyone down.
A reason to care: something you've seen, built or lived that makes this problem feel important and solvable to you.
Nice to have
Advanced knowledge of AI/ML for on-device inference or sensor fusion.
Experience as a founding engineer or early employee at a technology startup.
Exposure to clinical, pre-hospital, emergency, humanitarian or field-operations environments.
Familiarity with the realities of getting hardware manufactured and certified.
Pre-existing security clearance with UKSV
Probably not the right fit if
Your experience is mostly software-only, or mostly hardware-only, and you're not excited to work across the seam of the two.
You've worked mainly inside large organisations with mature processes and large teams, and need that structure to be effective.
You want to design the perfect architecture before understanding the users, the constraints and the regulatory path.
You're looking for a senior IC or corporate CTO title rather than a genuine co-founder role at pre-seed pace.
Why build with Founders Factory
Founders Factory provides structured support through a dedicated studio team specializing in product, design, and growth. This role offers co-founder equity and a stipend during the six-month build phase, positioning the CTO for a long-term leadership role in the resulting company.
As part of your application, we'd love to know
What have you seen, experienced, or learned that makes you believe this problem is both important and solvable?
What unique advantage, experience, network, or insight do you bring that would give you an edge in building this company?
What are the three most important milestones you would achieve during our six-month studio build programme, and why?
Compensation: Founder-level stipend during the studio build programme + significant founding tech lead equity with standard vesting.
Security clearance: Parts of our work will sit in national-security-adjacent settings. Candidates should be willing and able to undergo UK government security vetting if not already held.
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