Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in London

This is a rare opportunity to step into a high‑impact CTO role within a fast‑evolving SaaS environment operating at the intersection of enterprise search and AI‑driven content discovery. You will lead the technical vision of a mature, stable, enterprise‑grade platform while simultaneously scaling a rapidly growing RAG‑based AI product that is driving new commercial momentum. In this hands‑on leadership role, you will work closely with a senior engineering team, guiding architecture, infrastructure, and product evolution in a fully remote, high‑trust organization. You will collaborate directly with executive leadership to align technology strategy with business outcomes, balancing innovation with operational excellence. The environment is lean, autonomous, and outcome‑driven, where technical decisions carry real strategic weight. This role is ideal for a player‑coach technology leader who thrives at the intersection of architecture, AI systems, and team leadership.

Accountabilities:

• Define and drive the overall technical architecture for both the established enterprise search platform and the emerging AI/RAG product line.
• Lead critical decisions on scalability, infrastructure design, system reliability, and long‑term technical evolution.
• Own deployment strategies, operational readiness, and infrastructure stability across all engineering initiatives.
• Guide the evaluation and adoption of modern engineering tools, with a strong focus on AI‑assisted development practices.
• Lead, mentor, and support a team of experienced engineers, fostering autonomy, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Conduct architectural and code reviews while providing high‑quality technical guidance and feedback.
• Collaborate closely with executive leadership on product strategy, roadmap prioritization, and business alignment.
• Manage enterprise‑level technical requirements, including security reviews, compliance standards, and customer SLAs.
• Lead SOC 2 compliance efforts and support audit and security certification processes.
• Balance technical debt, feature delivery, and system reliability across competing priorities.
• Stay actively involved in architecture and system design, maintaining strong technical credibility within the team.
• Champion AI/ML innovation, especially in RAG systems, LLM applications, and modern development workflows.

Requirements:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including significant leadership responsibilities in senior technical roles.
• Proven experience leading and mentoring experienced engineering teams in a high‑trust environment.
• Strong hands‑on familiarity with AI‑assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot.
• Solid technical foundation in Java/Kotlin, Python, and AWS cloud environments.
• Demonstrated experience with AI/ML systems, including RAG architectures, LLMs, and prompt engineering.
• Strong understanding of enterprise SaaS environments, including SLAs, compliance, and security requirements.
• Ability to operate effectively across both strategic leadership and hands‑on technical contribution.
• Excellent communication skills in English, both written and verbal.
• Strong product mindset with curiosity about customer problems and business impact.
• Experience in search, information retrieval, or related domains is a strong plus.
• Familiarity with tools such as OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, MySQL, Terraform/Pulumi, or LangChain/LangSmith is advantageous.
• Prior CTO or VP Engineering experience is a plus but not mandatory for the right profile.

Benefits:

• Fully remote role within the European Union with maximum location flexibility.
• High autonomy and trust‑based working culture with minimal bureaucracy.
• Opportunity to shape both a mature enterprise platform and a fast‑growing AI product.
• Direct collaboration with founders and executive leadership on strategic decisions.
• Strong influence over technical direction, architecture, and product evolution.
• Flexible, outcome‑driven work environment focused on impact rather than process.
• Access to a highly experienced, collaborative, and senior engineering team.
• Flexible time off policy to support rest and work‑life balance.
• Part of a larger SaaS ecosystem with knowledge sharing across multiple products and teams.
• Opportunity to work at the forefront of AI‑assisted software development and RAG technologies.