Chief Technology Officer — Vehicle-Software Programme

The mandate

A vehicle-software programme serves multiple regions with rising engineering output. Variant branches, supplier stacks, duplicated middleware and long-tail fleet support consume significant capacity. Architecture decisions sit across vehicle programmes, leaving no executive able to simplify the whole estate. The board created a CTO role to address this.

The CTO will lead approximately 1,500 employees and material partners and a technology perimeter near ₹6,250 crore. Scope includes architecture, platforms, engineering, integration, release, supplier technology, cybersecurity, technical debt and installed-base support. Product leaders own customer features; finance owns profit reporting. The CTO owns technical choices and their lifecycle operating consequences.

Profitability cannot be recovered through indiscriminate engineering cuts. Common platforms can reduce duplication but amplify defects; supplier exit can improve economics but expose source and certification gaps. The CTO must choose simplification that preserves safety, homologation, update and support obligations.

Variant retirement is as important as new architecture. Each branch carries test, cyber and field obligations. The leader will require funded owners, migration and evidence before removing support or creating another market-specific fork.

Why this seat is open

The profitability review revealed an authority gap and triggered urgent, unplanned creation of the position. There is no predecessor. Interim architecture councils may contain new divergence but cannot make portfolio, supplier and senior-team decisions. The board seeks an executive within eight weeks.

What you will own

• Set target architecture and principles across vehicle programmes and regions.
• Identify duplication, variants, supplier dependency and technical debt driving lifecycle cost.
• Decide platform consolidation, internalisation, partnership and retirement.
• Protect safety, cyber, homologation and installed-fleet obligations through simplification.
• Establish engineering economics by platform, branch and supported fleet.
• Govern release and recovery across common components.
• Build principal-engineer and technology leadership careers.
• Advise product and finance leaders with traceable technical consequence.

The first architecture decisions will focus on where variation is economically justified. The CTO will trace a requested regional branch from regulation or customer need through code ownership, validation, cloud operation, cybersecurity response and years of field support. Variants without a durable reason will be stopped or converged; legitimate differences will receive explicit lifecycle budgets. Platform reuse will be measured by maintained common code and shared evidence, not by naming conventions or presentation diagrams.

Supplier strategy requires comparable technical choices. The executive will determine which interfaces, source rights, build recipes and diagnostic data the company must control, and where a partner can remain the better long-term owner. Any internalisation case must include talent absorption and installed-fleet continuity, while a renewed partnership must contain credible portability. Technical debt will be treated as an exposure portfolio with customer, release and recovery consequences rather than a single monetary estimate.

The CTO will create an engineering constitution for common components: design authority, contribution rules, security ownership, compatibility commitments and exceptions. Release evidence should follow software from laboratory through vehicle integration and fleet telemetry, allowing teams to distinguish code defects from calibration, network or hardware interaction. Simplification cannot weaken homologation records or abandon vehicles already sold. Retirement plans will state supported cohorts, customer communication, service tooling and rollback. Principal engineers will hold genuine decision authority across organisational lines, giving the new structure technical memory beyond the executive team.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days will produce an architecture and lifecycle-cost map and freeze unsupported new variants. The CTO will recommend platforms and branches to scale, contain or retire and identify supplier rights needed for any transition.

By month eight, two consolidation or internalisation actions should be operating, common release evidence should span selected programmes and the leadership team will be complete. One uneconomic variant family should enter controlled retirement with customer and regulatory acceptance.

At year-end, duplicated engineering and supplier run cost should fall by 15%, release lead time by 25% and supported variant count by 20%. Common-platform severe incidents must not increase, and critical fleet obligations should have funded owners and recovery evidence.

What the board will measure

• Technical decisions producing verified lifecycle economics.
• Simplification without weakened safety, cyber or customer support.
• Variant and supplier obligations retired completely.
• Architecture authority accepted across vehicle programmes.
• Leadership depth beyond the CTO.

The person

You are an automotive CTO, software-platform or embedded engineering executive who has simplified a complex production estate. You understand architecture and source rights and have owned installed-fleet consequences. The board will not accept a cost leader without deep engineering credibility.

You bring 22–28 years of experience and have controlled at least ₹3,600 crore while leading 1,050 engineers and partners. Evidence should include a variant you retired, a supplier capability you internalised and a common platform whose risk you managed.

The role is onsite in Gurugram with regular vehicle-programme and supplier engagement.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and long-term incentives. Measures include lifecycle economics, reliability, simplification and technical succession. Engineering cuts alone are not value. Final terms reflect scope and current mix.

Confidentiality

The programmes, architecture, suppliers and profitability data are confidential. Further detail follows qualification and an undertaking. Gurugram and the approximate team scale are not identifying information.