Chief Technology Officer — Interim, Medical Technology

The mandate

A remotely exploitable firmware weakness triggered voluntary device recall, and the founder-CTO accelerated a planned departure rather than lead remediation. Engineering is split between urgent patching and a delayed next-generation release, without an agreed safety architecture.

The interim must start inside three weeks and hold full technology authority for twelve months. Permanent recruitment begins after the recall correction receives regulator acceptance, leaving two months for architecture and team transition.

Handover is complete when affected devices are remediated above ninety-eight per cent, secure-development controls pass independent audit, the delayed release clears design transfer, and the successor signs the product risk and architecture baseline.

The CTO may stop releases, set architecture, reprioritise engineers and approve specialist security work below ₹1.5 crore. Recall expansion, cloud-contract changes above ₹4 crore and permanent vice-president appointments need board approval; clinical-benefit claims and regulatory submissions remain with Medical and Regulatory leaders.

Consumer-app monetisation, acquisition integration and unrelated enterprise IT are excluded. The executive must repair regulated product engineering, not become a catch-all technology leader.

Why this seat is open

The founder's departure became immediate when the recall demanded a different operating discipline. Product leaders need one temporary technology decision-maker who understands both adversarial security and design controls. The board will recruit a long-term scale CTO once the remediation architecture is no longer moving beneath the search.

What you will own

• Decide the containment and field-remediation strategy using exploitability, patient exposure and update-channel evidence.
• Establish a secure product architecture covering device identity, signed updates, data protection and vulnerability response.
• Reprioritise firmware, software and verification capacity between recall correction and the next regulated release.
• Approve design-control gates with traceability from threat model and system hazard to test evidence.
• Commission penetration and secure-development audits, and close high-severity findings before release approval.
• Define post-market vulnerability intake, severity, disclosure and remediation service levels with accountable owners.
• Transfer architecture decisions, open risks and design-transfer evidence to the permanent CTO through signed review.

Candidate qualifications

• More than twenty-two years in product engineering, including executive leadership of regulated connected medical devices.
• Direct management of a cybersecurity correction, field safety action or device recall across multiple jurisdictions.
• Strong command of systems engineering, firmware, cloud connectivity, threat modelling and secure update mechanisms.
• Working mastery of medical-device design controls, software lifecycle standards and post-market vulnerability obligations.
• Evidence of making release decisions jointly with independent Quality, Regulatory and Medical functions.
• Experience succeeding a founder or returning authority after temporary product-technology stabilisation.

Non-negotiables

• Can join in Bengaluru within three weeks and support global incident windows when necessary.
• No undisclosed interest in security vendors, cloud providers or competing connected-device companies.
• Will exercise documented release-stop authority when safety or security evidence is insufficient.
• Available exclusively through recall closure and successor induction.

1. 49 words maximum. State your availability and any restriction on supporting security incidents across time zones.
2. 49 words maximum. Which connected-product vulnerability did you remediate in fielded devices, and at what completion rate?
3. 49 words maximum. Name the design evidence you require before releasing a security-sensitive medical firmware change.