CTO’s Note About This Role
I’m not looking for someone who just “does tickets faster.” I’m looking for a CTO-type Principal – someone who understands technology and business, who can zoom out to see the system, zoom in to fix the gnarly bits, and constantly apply the business acumen you’ve built over your career.
You’ll:
- Own a core product area and, when needed, lead multi-team, multi-product initiatives. - Sit on our Architecture Committee, helping define and maintain the architectural guidelines for the entire org. - Be a co-owner with me of secure, reliable, and observable systems - Your work will help truly educate today and tomorrow’s students in a revolutionary way! I want someone who is independent but aligned: you don’t wait for permission to evolve the stack, but you keep your promises, hit your dates and if you can’t, you come up with solutions, trade-offs, plans and designs to achieve the goals one way or another. If you like being the person leadership comes to when things are fuzzy, risky, or complex – and you enjoy turning that fuzz into clear options, trade-offs, and plans – you’ll be very happy here.
What You’ll Do
Own a Product Area and Lead Multi-Team Initiatives
- Own the technical direction, quality, and delivery of a key product area within StrongMind . - When needed, lead multi-team, multi-product projects (for example, cross-cutting platform changes, shared services, or high-impact features). - Act as the go-to technical partner for Product Managers in your areas, shaping epics and projects into realistic, incremental slices.
Architecture, Systems Design
- Help design and evolve SMC as an online school OS, balancing product needs with platform stability and extensibility. - Define and refine service boundaries, module boundaries, data contracts, and integration patterns to keep the cost of future changes low. - Sit on the Architecture Committee with the other Principals, helping define and maintain org-wide architectural guidelines and reviewing major proposals for fit and risk. - Make decisions that balance short-term delivery with 12–24 month evolution, cutting the right corners without accumulating dangerous debt.
Delivery, Economic Thinking & Setting Expectations
- Own delivery for your product area and for multi-team initiatives you lead: help scope, slice, sequence, and de-risk. - Be the go-to person for PMs when work is big, fuzzy, or risky – turning concepts into incremental, shippable plans. - Apply heavy economic thinking: constantly weigh effort versus value, short-term versus long-term, and help choose the path that maximizes business impact. - Help set expectations with leadership and other departments (for example, “this will slip unless we drop X,” “we should reduce scope here to meet the date,” or “if we invest in