- Location
- Lahore
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Type
- Full-time
- Department
- IT
- Seniority
- C-Level
- Education
- Master
- Closing date
- Today
- Source
- CareersPage
Description
About client:
A Data & AI company that builds, automates, and launches digital products—helping businesses optimize operations and rapidly turn ideas into production-ready solutions.
Position Overview:
We are seeking a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to own technology across both of our core engines: client delivery and product development. As a technical leader, you will set an AI-first direction for how the company builds, sells, and delivers.
Being "AI-first" does not mean "AI-only." We need a hands-on player-coach who deeply understands how software, data, and infrastructure work under the hood. You will set high-level strategy alongside the founders and board while actively architecting systems, reviewing code, building prototypes, and joining client solutioning calls.
Key Responsibilities
1. AI-First Technology Strategy
Set the company's technology vision and roadmap, positioning AI at the center of what is built and how operations run.
Make strategic decisions regarding build vs. buy vs. fine-tune, model selection, vendor evaluation, and knowing when AI is not the right solution.
Bring agentic systems, LLM applications, RAG, evaluation frameworks, and production guardrails into production for both client delivery and internal products.
Embed AI across the complete software development lifecycle (planning, coding, testing, review, documentation) to increase velocity without compromising quality.
Monitor the evolving AI landscape, filtering out hype to capture practical competitive advantages.
2. Data & AI Consultancy Leadership
Serve as the senior technical authority in client engagements (discovery, solution architecture, technical due diligence, and executive presentations).
Partner with founders and commercial teams during pre-sales to scope engagements, estimate effort, shape proposals, and price technical risk.
Own overall technical delivery quality, architecture standards, code quality, timelines, and client satisfaction.
Convert repetitive consultancy engagements into reusable accelerators, templates, and IP to improve margin and speed.
Manage and resolve technical escalations to maintain client trust.
3. Product Development
Lead technology direction for the external SaaS platform (Balencia), internal AI platforms, and client-built custom products.
Collaborate with founders to convert product vision into actionable technical roadmaps and release plans.
Architect systems for scale from day one (multi-tenant architecture, APIs, performance, observability, cost efficiency).
Balance engineering resource allocation between product development and consultancy commitments.
4. Engineering Excellence & Operations
Own cloud/platform architecture, CI/CD, MLOps/LLMOps, and data engineering standards.
Enforce enterprise-grade security, data privacy, and compliance practices.
Manage tech spend across cloud infrastructure, AI/API usage, and tooling with clear cost-to-value tracking.
Define and track key engineering metrics (delivery predictability, quality, uptime, AI model performance).
5. Team Leadership & Culture
Lead, mentor, and expand a team of 6–15 engineers, data scientists, and AI specialists.
Own technical hiring, including role design, interview structures, and setting the hiring bar.
Build an AI-native engineering culture that uses AI as a force multiplier.
Establish clear career paths, performance feedback loops, and technical ownership.
6. Hands-on Technical Execution
Lead architecture reviews and conduct code reviews on critical systems.
Personally build proofs of concept (POCs) and AI prototypes when speed is required.
Maintain close proximity to the codebase to spot issues early and drive engineering respect.
Required Qualifications
Experience: 15+ years in software engineering and technology leadership, with prior experience as a CTO, VP of Engineering, Head of Engineering, or equivalent executive role.
Core Fundamentals: Deep mastery of backend/frontend systems, distributed architecture, APIs, databases, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), and DevOps.
Production AI Experience: Proven track record shipping LLM, GenAI, or ML systems to real users, managing evaluation, hallucinations, latency, cost, and data privacy.
AI-First Workflows: Active daily usage of AI tools with demonstrated experience restructuring engineering team workflows for measurable productivity gains.
Data Engineering Depth: Strong understanding of data pipelines, warehousing, analytics platforms, and data governance.
Consultancy & Client-Facing Background: Experience leading technology within a consultancy, agency, or IT services firm, including hands-on experience with SOWs, scoping, utilization, margins, and stakeholder management.
Product Track Record: Experience taking at least one product from early-stage design to paying customers.
Executive Communication & Business Acumen: Ability to communicate technical topics to client C-suites and board members while balancing technical trade-offs against cost and commercial impact.
Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
Preferred / Bonus Qualifications
Hands-on experience with the modern data stack (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, Airflow).
Experience building 0-to-1 multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
Hands-on familiarity with agent frameworks, vector databases, and model fine-tuning/hosting.
Experience delivering projects for clients in the GCC, UK, Europe, or North America.
Relevant Cloud or AI certifications (AWS, Azure, GCP).
Active public footprint (open-source contributions, conference talks, writing, or published case studies).
Experience building and scaling engineering teams in Pakistan.