Chief Technology Officer — Data-Products Franchise

The mandate

A privately held data-products franchise has reached an architecture decision that will determine its next growth phase. Shared data, model and delivery components can create scale, but legacy coupling, reliability work and cloud cost are depressing margin and engineering velocity. The role provides permanent ownership of this choice.

The Chief Technology Officer will steward technology supporting approximately ₹1,350 crore in annual recurring revenue and lead around 550 employees and material partners. Scope includes engineering, architecture, data platforms, reliability, cloud economics, security, developer experience, vendors and technical talent. The CTO is accountable to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor.

The architecture decision will begin with product and customer needs. Data ingestion, quality, modelling, APIs, entitlement, monitoring and explanation should reveal which capabilities belong in a shared platform and which require product-specific design. A target diagram cannot substitute for migration and operating evidence.

Current-state economics need clarity. Build, cloud, storage, data licences, support, incidents, duplicated services and development delay should connect by product. The CTO will distinguish strategic flexibility from architecture choices that preserve low-value customisation or supplier lock-in.

The target architecture will be funded in stages. Each stage needs customer or product value, dependency, capacity, reliability, cash and stop criteria. Reversibility should be preserved where assumptions remain uncertain. The board should not have to approve a multi-year commitment before early evidence exists.

Engineering velocity will be measured through completion, lead time, change failure, toil and adoption, not activity. Shared capabilities should reduce repeated work and speed safe delivery. If platform governance becomes another queue, the operating model must change.

Reliability is part of product economics. Service objectives, incidents, recovery, data correctness and customer consequence should guide investment. Root causes and recurring toil require protected capacity. Expansion cannot outrun the ability to operate and explain data products.

Margin recovery will come from architecture, operating and commercial choices. Cloud optimisation, data usage, product retirement, vendor terms and reduced duplication must reconcile to finance. Benefits count when consumption, contracts or work actually end, not when target-state assumptions are approved.

Migration will protect data and customers. Lineage, permissions, compatibility, validation, communications and rollback need explicit gates. Product teams cannot maintain hidden forks indefinitely, while central platforms cannot force migration without proven readiness.

Technical leadership will combine principal-engineer authority, accountable engineering management and platform product ownership. Succession should be tested through architecture, incident and capital decisions. The predecessor’s tacit context must transfer without preserving shadow control.

Why this seat is open

An accelerated transition created an urgent replacement need. Interim leadership protects current releases and services, but the board expects appointment within six to eight weeks before architecture and margin choices become irreversible.

What you will own

• Select and fund the target architecture for data products.
• Steward technology supporting ₹1,350 crore of ARR.
• Balance shared-platform scale with evidenced product difference.
• Improve engineering velocity, reliability and developer experience.
• Connect cloud, data and vendor economics to margin recovery.
• Lead approximately 550 employees and partners with technical succession.
• Govern staged migration through validation and rollback gates.
• Give the board explicit architecture, investment and downside choices.

The first 12 months

The first 90 days should reconcile architecture options, product needs and current economics. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to the decision, including customers, product, engineering, finance, operations, data and vendors. Stabilise severe reliability risk, assess leaders and agree gates.

Months four to nine should select the target, fund its first stages and remove priority duplication. Improve delivery flow, renegotiate material suppliers and begin controlled migration. Initial value may appear through lower cloud cost, faster completion, reduced incidents or avoided capital.

By year end, engineering velocity, reliability and a funded target architecture should reinforce margin recovery. Performance must stay inside 10% of approval, with three quarters of forecasts aligning products, cloud cash, customers and people. Priority technical risks will close only against independently verified evidence, and no severe architecture escalation may cross the 30-day threshold.

What the board will measure

• Architecture stages clearing customer, economic and reliability gates.
• Lead time, change failure, recurring toil and product adoption.
• Cloud and data cost reduced without service deterioration.
• Migration quality, data correctness and successful rollback tests.
• Preserve over nine in ten pivotal technologists and ready cover for seven in ten direct roles.
• Vendor concentration, portability and knowledge-transfer readiness.

The person

You are a CTO, VP Engineering or Chief Architect with 22–28 years in software, cloud, data platforms, IT services or technology-enabled business services. You have made consequential architecture trade-offs while scaling delivery and reliability.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least ₹800 crore, and you have led 420 or more people. You can show technical and economic outcomes sustained over two reporting periods.

You understand data products, platform architecture and cloud economics. You can challenge local customisation and central-platform optimism, make staged commitments and retain technical followership through change.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is ₹3.2–4.6 crore plus performance variable and LTI. The permanent Pune role is onsite and expects relocation, although a structured weekly commute may be considered during the first quarter; notice up to six months is acceptable.

Confidentiality

The company, predecessor, architecture options and customer data remain confidential. Identifying details follow mutual fit under an undertaking; scale and circumstances are blended.