As CTO, you will own the entire technical vision and execution for our satellite imagery-driven agri-tech startup. You will lead engineering, data science, and DevOps teams to deliver a world-class mobile platform for farmers, while building scalable infrastructure for in-house geospatial analytics. Your mandate is to maximize output (per Andy Groves 'High Output Management') by focusing on high-leverage activities, building systems, and mentoring talent.

High Output Management Principles Applied

- Focus on managerial leverage : hire exceptional leads, establish rituals, and eliminate bottlenecks.

- Define output metrics : uptime, farmer adoption, model accuracy, data pipeline SLAs.

- Task-relevant maturity : delegate decisions based on individual competence & experience.

- Build scalable systems instead of relying on individual heroics.

Job Summary :

Builds and scales satellite data and AI/ML infrastructure, ensuring robust IP development and protection. Owns end-to-end geospatial data pipelines and platforms powering all group businesses, with reliability, security, and accuracy at scale.

Roles & Responsibilities :

- Architect, build, and scale multi-sensor satellite data pipelines (SAR, optical, thermal), ground ingestion, preprocessing, fusion, and real-time analytics.

- Own AI/ML R&D to production : model design, validation, deployment (MLOps), monitoring, and continuous improvement for field-level accuracy

- Define and deliver platform APIs and services consumed by product dashboards; ensure backward-compatible releases.

- Establish IP strategy and execution : invention harvesting, patent filings, trade-secret frameworks, code provenance, and freedom-to-operate reviews.

- Ensure data governance, privacy, and security : encryption, access control, anonymization, audit trails; steward compliant use of licensed geospatial/weather data.

- Set platform SLAs/SLOs (uptime, latency, model accuracy); lead SRE, observability, incident response, and postmortems.

- Optimize compute and storage economics across cloud/HPC; capacity planning, cost controls, and performance tuning.

- Lead buildbuypartner decisions; manage vendors and strategic tech partnerships (academia, space agencies, hyperscalers).

- Stand up rigorous Cal/Val programs with ground truth, agronomy inputs, and A/B experimentation frameworks

- Recruit, mentor, and scale a world-class team (AI/ML, data, geospatial, platform, security); drive OKRs and engineering excellence.

- Translate business needs into technical roadmaps and quarterly release plans; align with CEO/COO and Business Heads

Candidate Profile & Skill Requirements :

- Leadership & Scale : 10+ years in software engineering leadership, ideally within startups or fast-scaling companies; proven ability to grow teams from <10 to 50+ while maintaining high output, accountability, and innovation. At least 5+ years leading at CTO, Head of Data, or Head of AI level.

- Technical Depth : Deep expertise in mobile and cloud systems, with 10+ years in building and scaling data platforms. Strong background in system design, distributed systems, and data pipelines.

- AI/ML Leadership : 3+ years helming AI/ML teams, with demonstrated scale-up of satellite/EO data systems and production ML pipelines serving millions of inferences daily. Skilled in AI/ML for Earth Observation : time-series analysis, computer vision, transformers, geospatial deep learning, model evaluation, and drift management.

- Geospatial Engineering : Hands-on experience with geospatial stacks (GDAL, Rasterio, PostGIS/SpatiaLite, Sentinel, Landsat, SAR processing, atmospheric correction, data fusion, tiling, and caching).

- MLOps & Platforms : Proficient in Kubernetes/Docker, Airflow, Kubeflow/MLflow, CI/CD, API gateways, feature stores, and scalable model deployment.

- Data Architecture : Expertise in building and managing data lakes/warehouses, real-time streaming, vector DBs, and optimized caching layers for high-volume workloads.

- Cross-Functional Collaboration : Excellent communicator with a proven ability to partner across sales, operations, product, and government relations in B2B/B2G and regulated environments.

- Innovation & IP : Demonstrated track record of IP creation (patents, publications) and governance of invention disclosures, patent drafting, and code licensing

Industry Knowledge (Preferred) :

- AgTech analytics, parametric/Index insurance data pipelines, and government/enterprise procurement dynamics.

- Geospatial licensing, data localization/privacy norms, weather/IMD integrations, and Cal/Val best practices.

Personal Attributes :

- Hands-on builder with strategic depth; bias for action and measurable outcomes.

- Integrity, resilience, and ownership mindset.

- Highly organized, detail-oriented, frugal with compute, and results-focused