Responsibilities
- Translate company strategy into a clear 2-3 year architectural roadmap and align engineering, product, data, and business teams around it.
- Establish architectural principles that guide decisions across legacy modernization, new service delivery platforms, and AI-native platforms.
- Lead the engineering organization by hiring, mentoring, and developing senior engineering leaders, tech leads, and architects.
- Drive engineering execution by establishing best practices for CI/CD, observability, infrastructure, developer experience, and delivery management.
- Own and continuously improve the software development lifecycle (SDLC), ensuring operationalization, metrics tracking, reporting, and team optimization.
- Oversee their enterprise cybersecurity strategy, policies, and technical controls, ensuring security is embedded into architecture, SDLC, and operations (secure-by-design).
- Manage identity, access management, data protection, incident response, and vulnerability management as the organization scales.
- Regularly assess evolving business conditions, customer needs, and market dynamics, adapting technical direction accordingly.
- Proactively surface risks, tradeoffs, and opportunities to leadership before they become constraints.
- Present their architecture, platform vision, and AI strategy to customers, partners, and prospects with executive presence and polish.
- Represent the company at industry conferences, panels, and events, serving as a visible technical leader and brand ambassador.
- Balance system and architectural decisions across scalability, speed, security, cost, and operational maturity.
- Establish clear ownership models, accountability, and delivery standards across the engineering organization.
- Address structural challenges within the engineering team, making difficult decisions about process improvements and team composition when necessary.
- Lead a fully remote, distributed team of approximately 20 people across 3-4 direct reports (senior directors).
- Articulate the 'why' behind architectural decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences with clarity and conviction.
- Travel approximately once per month for quarterly leadership meetings and strategic sessions.
Requirements
- 15+ years of experience in enterprise architecture, technology strategy, SDLC, and solution design leadership roles in high-growth, global environments.
- Deep software development experience including running software engineering teams and delivering production software.
- Expert-level understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), including how to operationalize it, deliver on it, report on metrics, and optimize teams around it.
- Strong cloud architecture expertise specifically in cloud-based applications (Azure or AWS required).
- Experience driving enterprise-wide transformations including modernization, cloud migration, data strategy, and AI enablement.
- Proven success designing, implementing, and evolving integrated systems at scale.
- Practical experience integrating AI/ML systems into production software.
- Strong ability to communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences, including customers and executives.
- Executive presence and polish, comfortable presenting at customer meetings, partner engagements, and industry speaking events.
- Strategic and visionary thinking, not just a strong executor, but someone who can envision corporate architecture and shape long-term technical direction.
- Proven ability to balance big-picture strategic thinking with hands-on involvement. Willing to roll up sleeves and understand details in a lean organization.
- Experience successfully managing fully remote, distributed teams.
- Track record of hiring, developing, and mentoring senior technical leaders.
- Demonstrated leadership through change.
- Ambitious career trajectory with genuine interest in progressing to a CTO role.
- Must have the current and continuing right to work in the United States of America without restrictions or expirations.
Nice to Have
- Experience in high-growth technology companies or organizations undergoing digital transformation.
- Experience launching commercial software products or transitioning from internal to external product delivery.
- Familiarity with logistics, supply chain, or complex operational environments (not required).
- Track record working effectively with tight-knit, long-tenured teams.
Team
Team size: 20. Structure: 3-4 direct reports (senior directors)
Additional Information
- Travel approximately once per month for quarterly leadership meetings and strategic sessions.
