CTO

SmarterTravel is on a journey to revolutionize the $1 trillion travel and leisure industry. We believe that careful application of advanced AI and machine learning approaches can make travel more consumer-centric and less transaction. We are looking for a CTO to join our leadership team to help us build the human and technology assets to take our business to the next level.
As the CTO, you will build disruptive and cutting-edge digital products and leading a small, but growing team that is well on the road to developing transformational consumer travel and content experiences. You will partner with the CEO and other company executives to align all technology initiatives with the objectives of our business. You'll have ownership of the technology vision, design, deployment and management of the company's applications and technical infrastructure. Additionally, you will have responsibility for hiring and right-sizing the full software development, UX, data services, and DevOps functions at the company.
The ideal candidate will have experience with a broad range of software, hardware and data platforms, as well as a true start-up mindset while managing a variety of major initiatives with tight deadlines. The candidate will have the ability to operate both "inside" and "outside" of the box.
What you'll do
TECHNOLOGY AND VISION OWNERSHIP

• Set overall vision and roadmap for SmarterTravel's technology and technical infrastructure.
• Propose, achieve, and report on OKRs for the technology organization while working closely with the CEO and product leaders in the delivery of business-critical products and services.
• Hold self and team accountable for growth, effectiveness, and agility of company's tech capabilities.
• Work to constantly improve the performance of SmarterTravel's tech applications and platforms.
• Work closely with the CEO to conceptualize, vet and support company's technical integration activities with 3 rd party business partners.

DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS

• Be "hands-on" with tactical elements when circumstances or projects require; SmartTravel proudly maintains a start-up ethos - so someone who enjoys being a "player-coach" would be the ideal fit.
• Ensure reliability, compliance and security of our tools and customer-facing solutions
• Work at the intersection of the commercial and the technical, helping translate revenue-generating business goals into concrete priorities, plans and guidelines that allow developers and engineers to be both efficient and effective.
• Develop, enable, and constantly evolve the company's underpinning tech stack, operational processes, and human resources to ensure sustained product innovation and excellence in operations over time.
• Be proactive in seeking best-cost, technically efficient methods for interacting with the system of key service partners and third-party vendors.

TEAM DEVELOPMENT

• Hire, coach, manage, and mentor an elite, world-class technology team.
• Implement best practices for teamwork and communication within and across technology functions.
• Ensure team is properly resourced by planning and putting in place the necessary staff development plans and pathways for team member progression.
• Inform overall budgeting and planning to ensure resource plans are aligned across the business and accounted for in the financial plans appropriately.
• Manage vendor relationships and outsourced workforce, where appropriate.

The ideal candidate will have...

• Prior experience owning and managing start-up or growth-company technology organizations.
• A track record of leadership managing functions related to the design, development, rollout and management of sophisticated online products and services.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams, supporting them to drive demonstrable growth in emerging products and services.
• Experience supporting and facilitating the work of data science and business analysis professionals seeking advanced customer and product insights.
• Exposure to and familiarity with the following:
• commercial-grade UX and frontend web application frameworks;
• highly scalable transactional systems architectures;
• sophisticated, large or complex OLTP and OLAP database backends;
• hybrid hosted cloud environments, particularly those leveraging AWS;
• Content management systems and strategies;
• API management;
• search engine marketing and related algo-driven digital customer acquisition processes;
• product and website analytics tools.
• Strong communication skills

Bonus points if you have...

• Successful start-up experience.
• Travel and hospitality industry experience
• Exposure to some or all of the following technologies and platforms:
• Javascript, Javascript frameworks, JSON, etc.;
• Python and various Python model support tools and analytical libraries;
• Java-based development and development environments;
• MySQL, SQLServer, Oracle or PostgreSQL platforms;
• Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Databricks and/or other high-end data warehouse / data lakehouse platforms;
• Agile development processes and tools;
• ML and other practical "narrow AI" solutions, including chatbot systems, recommendation algorithms, and advanced combinatorial matching systems;
• Docker or Kubernetes type container tools;
• Infrastructure for supporting advanced data science work within an AWS context, including tools such as EMR, Sagemaker, Glue, Quicksight, etc.
• Working with advanced customer experience or customer insights tools or products