Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

This position is posted by Jobgether on behalf of a partner company. We are currently looking for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in Netherlands.

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.

• 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.