Interim Chief Technology Officer — Electric Vehicle OTA Safety

The mandate

An over-the-air control-module update left a cohort of vehicles unable to restart after a partial installation, and the CTO was dismissed when rollback coverage proved incomplete. Field recovery is underway, but vehicle, cloud, mobile and service teams need one accountable safety and release decision maker.

The interim must begin within ten days for a fixed ten-month term. Recruitment for a permanent CTO begins after the repaired OTA framework passes independent validation, with six weeks protected for transition.

Handover is complete when every affected vehicle is recovered or physically remediated, OTA eligibility and rollback controls pass fleet-scale tests, two subsequent releases meet safety and quality thresholds, and the successor chairs one Product Safety Committee release decision.

The interim may stop releases, command field recovery, reallocate ₹15 crore of software safety spend and suspend suppliers. A vehicle recall, customer redress above ₹10 crore, architecture replacement, permanent leadership hiring and acceptance of critical safety risk require CEO, committee or board approval.

Powertrain hardware redesign, manufacturing capacity and vehicle pricing are outside scope. The CTO owns connected software, release and technical recovery while product safety and regulatory functions retain independent challenge.

Why this seat is open

The failed rollback undermined confidence in the previous release authority. Component teams own only pieces of a vehicle-to-cloud update and cannot independently assess the total safety case. A temporary CTO can establish end-to-end evidence before permanent innovation leadership resumes.

What you will own

• Bound affected vehicles by hardware, software, connectivity, battery state, update stage and recovery path.
• Decide remote, assisted or physical remediation for each cohort using safety and recoverability evidence.
• Rebuild OTA eligibility, staged deployment, health check, pause, rollback and service-escalation controls.
• Set fleet-scale validation across connectivity loss, power interruption, version skew and partial installation.
• Approve two subsequent releases only after independent safety, cyber, quality and support readiness.
• Reconcile recovery completion, customer impact, field cost and residual vehicle risk.
• Transfer release architecture, fleet inventory, safety evidence, supplier actions and the next roadmap to the permanent CTO.

Candidate qualifications

• Held CTO, vehicle software chief or embedded-platform director authority in connected automotive or mobility systems.
• Commanded recovery from an OTA, firmware or control-system field failure.
• Built release safety across embedded, cloud, mobile, connectivity and service operations.
• Exercised fleet release-stop authority under customer and commercial pressure.
• Managed field remediation and customer consequence alongside engineering correction.
• Understands automotive cybersecurity, functional safety and software traceability expectations.

Non-negotiables

• Available in Bengaluru within ten days.
• No current role with module suppliers, OTA platform vendors or independent safety reviewers.
• Will not approve fleet release without tested rollback or safe physical recovery.
• Must have owned connected-vehicle production software.

1. 49 words maximum. Confirm availability and disclose any EV supplier or platform conflict.
2. 49 words maximum. Describe an OTA failure you contained and how the affected fleet was bounded.
3. 49 words maximum. Which interruption scenario must pass before staged deployment begins?