Chief of Staff to the CTO

Altana•Brooklyn, NY

23h•$235,000 - $285,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Altana is hiring a Chief of Staff to the CTO to serve as an operational partner to the CTO and Product, Engineering, and Implementation leadership team. The role owns the technical organization’s operating cadence, portfolio visibility, delivery standards, budget and people-planning partnership, and the Program Management Office. It requires operational ownership and sound judgment to keep technical functions aligned with Altana’s business strategy and corporate governance. For compensation, leveling, organizational design, and budget matters, the role applies frameworks owned by the People CoE and Finance and serves as the CTO’s embedded counterpart to those teams. The Chief of Staff leads high-priority organizational initiatives, runs leadership forums and planning reviews, and builds and leads a team of technical program managers. The role oversees program and customer-delivery intake, prioritization, planning, status, risk and dependency tracking, launch readiness, government contract reporting, and delivery-health tooling. It also integrates priorities across Product, Engineering, Implementation, and public- and private-sector delivery; manages decision and information flow to the CTO; and prepares executive communications grounded in the organization’s actual state. In partnership with the People CoE, the role runs Product/Engineering headcount planning, organizational design, and leveling and compensation within central frameworks. In partnership with Finance and FP&A, it owns the Product/Engineering budget and spend against the plan, tracks burn and variances, models headcount and vendor trade-offs, and owns success metrics to align business levers with growth and capital deployment. The position is based in Brooklyn, New York, with hybrid work flexibility. Candidates must live within commuting distance of Altana’s Williamsburg office. The posted annual base salary range is $235,000–$285,000. Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers, and the company offers either a discretionary bonus or variable compensation plan depending on the role.

Requirements

Approximately 10 years of experience in product management, technical program or portfolio management, strategy, business operations, or a role with genuine operational ownership.
Demonstrated ability to manage parallel workstreams, competing stakeholders, and ambiguous ownership while keeping work moving.
Experience building or running a PMO or program portfolio, including designing intake, prioritization, and delivery-tracking processes that teams use.
Experience managing and growing a team, ideally program or project managers, including hiring, coaching, and providing hard feedback.
Technical fluency sufficient to discuss APIs, infrastructure, and deployment and architecture concepts with platform engineers, and to read and challenge a design document; coding is not required.
Financial and operational fluency, including budget management, explaining variance, and evaluating headcount and spending trade-offs.
Ability to partner with a People function on organizational design and workforce planning without owning that function.
Ability to influence engineers, product managers, and go-to-market leaders through trust, framing, and timing rather than relying on the CTO’s authority.
Exceptional organizational precision, including creating legible systems, clean first drafts, and async updates requiring minimal editing.
Must be within commuting distance of the Williamsburg, Brooklyn office.

Nice To Haves

Experience delivering programs under government contracts, including milestones, deliverables, and compliance reporting.
Experience building production systems with LLMs, agents, evaluations, or retrieval.
Experience using engineering metrics such as DORA or SPACE to improve how a team works.
Background in trade, supply chain, or compliance, or experience working with government customers.

Responsibilities

Lead or staff high-priority critical organizational initiatives identified by Product, Engineering, and Design leadership.
Run the organization’s operating cadence, including staff meetings, roadmap planning and portfolio reviews, metrics reviews, and leadership offsites; set agendas, drive follow-through, and document and distribute decisions.
Build and lead a team of technical program managers; hire and develop the team, set standards for the function, and determine where TPMs are embedded versus centrally deployed.
Own the portfolio view of in-flight programs and customer deliveries, including intake, prioritization, and delivery standards for planning, status, risk and dependency tracking, launch readiness, and government contract reporting.
Provide and maintain tooling that makes delivery health visible.
Integrate work across Product, Engineering, Implementation, and public- and private-sector delivery motions; surface conflicting priorities and drive resolution.
Manage decision and information flow to the CTO, including what is escalated and what is resolved below the CTO.
Prepare board and all-hands materials and internal Product/Engineering updates that reflect the organization’s actual state.
Partner with the People CoE on headcount planning, organizational design, and leveling and compensation within central frameworks; assess where the organization is over- or under-built and serve as the CTO’s counterpart to the People team.
Own the Product/Engineering budget and spending against the plan established by Finance; track burn, flag variance, model headcount and vendor trade-offs, and serve as the CTO’s counterpart to FP&A.
Own success metrics in partnership with FP&A to align business levers with growth and capital deployment.

Benefits

Flexible Time Off policy.
Paid parental leave: 14 weeks for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks for birthing parents, paid at 100% of base salary.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits with employer contributions.
High deductible health plan paid 100% by the employer for employees, with an employer contribution to a Health Savings Account.
Flexible Spending Account option, including a Dependent Care FSA.
Life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage at no cost to employees.
Fidelity 401(k) retirement savings program.
Commuter benefits using pre-tax funds for public transit or parking.
Free premium Calm subscription for employees.
Pet insurance and a pet veterinary service and telehealth discount plan.
Employee Assistance Program with free confidential personal support.
Competitive equity grants included in the majority of full-time offers.
Discretionary bonus or variable compensation plan, depending on the role.