Chief Technology Office

Ad Astra Info Systems Llc•Overland Park, KS

1d•Onsite

About The Position

By combining our unparalleled domain expertise with leading-edge technology, Ad Astra is helping higher education in its mission to advance timely student completions. We are building a cloud-based software platform that will provide the foundation for our next generation of industry-leading solutions and analytics. Simply put, we're helping students graduate faster. We recognize talent. We recognize and appreciate the unique God-given talents that our people bring to Ad Astra. Aligning these individual gifts with our work sets team members up to succeed. We’re unpretentious. There’s no room for ego. We admit our imperfections and have the humility to know what we don’t know. We’re passionate. We aren’t satisfied with the status quo. We’re on a mission together to protect the value of degree completion and to transform the higher education industry. We’re pioneering. We’re pioneering and aren’t afraid of failing—in fact, we celebrate it. We love it when our people boldly experiment with innovative solutions. We love fun. The health of our relationships is strengthened by working with people who stretch our thinking—and by enjoying the lighter side of life together. We don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we do take fun seriously. We have grit. Beyond talent and intelligence, our people have stick-to-itiveness. We push through challenges to make goals a reality.

Requirements

Minimum of 15 years of progressive technology experience.
At least 10 years leading engineering organizations within B2B SaaS companies serving mid-market or enterprise clients.
Demonstrated success as a CTO or VP of Engineering in a SaaS company with a track record of building and scaling cloud native platforms from early stage through growth and maturity.
Experience in the higher education technology sector preferred, with working knowledge of institutional workflows, data systems, and the regulatory environment governing student data.
Proven experience building and evolving AI and machine learning capabilities within a product organization, including responsible AI governance and client facing AI capability delivery.
Strong background in data engineering, data integration architecture, and enterprise data platform design using modern cloud data tools.
Experience operating within or alongside a private equity-backed environment, with an understanding of the performance expectations, operational cadence, and value creation priorities of PE ownership.

Nice To Haves

Experience in the higher education technology sector preferred, with working knowledge of institutional workflows, data systems, and the regulatory environment governing student data.

Responsibilities

Set and execute the company’s technology vision.
Own the full engineering and platform stack.
Ensure technology decisions accelerate business outcomes, product innovation, and go to market performance.
Contribute to company strategy, client success, and Strategic Partner relations.
Represent engineering at the executive level.
Work with other parts of the organization in cross-company initiatives, such as corporate security, AI transformation, and corporate policy governance.
Develop and own a multi-year technology vision, strategy, and roadmap aligned with company goals.
Serve as a strategic adviser to the CEO and executive leadership team on technology investments, platform evolution, and risk management.
Partner with Product leadership to adopt and operate within the Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) product model.
Lead and communicate a platform consolidation roadmap.
Define and govern the strategy for integrating external institutional systems into the Ad Astra platform.
Establish technology governance frameworks including IP protection, data stewardship, and regulatory compliance.
Develop and manage the annual technology budget.
Represent the technology organization at the Board level.
Monitor competitive landscape and emerging technology trends.
Build scalable architecture standards.
Lead technical due diligence on acquisition targets.
Lead post-acquisition integration work.
Build and sustain a high performing engineering organization rooted in accountability, psychological safety, and a culture of continuous improvement.
Recruit, develop, and retain exceptional engineering talent.
Build and evolve an organizational structure that enables rapid product delivery and long-term platform quality.
Foster a culture of innovation, transparency, and accountability.
Establish and communicate clear team and individual goals; provide ongoing coaching and performance feedback.
Develop an organizational model that delivers effective services to internal and external customers.
Champion engineering culture externally.
Lead change management processes.
Own the engineering processes, quality standards, and delivery mechanisms that power Ad Astra’s SaaS platform.
Drive a modern, discipline-driven software development lifecycle grounded in Agile principles and SVPG product practices.
Design and sustain effective software development lifecycle (SDLC) processes.
Champion and implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) practices.
Embed automated testing, code quality gates, and security scanning into CI/CD pipelines.
Promote Agile development methodology.
Drive continuous improvement of SDLC maturity.
Establish and enforce architectural review processes.
Monitor product roadmap adherence and delivery commitments.
Build scalable processes for technical debt management.
Work directly with key customers and institutional partners.
Lead Ad Astra’s evolution as an AI enabled, data driven platform company.
Own and evolve the company’s enterprise AI strategy.
Lead the development of a modern cloud native data platform on AWS.
Build and oversee a Data Engineering practice.
Drive the adoption of data science and machine learning capabilities.
Champion a data informed engineering culture.
Evaluate and adopt emerging AI frameworks, large language model integrations, and agentic automation technologies.
Represent Ad Astra’s AI and data practices with clients, prospects, and institutional partners.
Lead the enterprise AI transformation strategies.
Accountable for a resilient, scalable, and secure cloud infrastructure.
Own the cloud infrastructure strategy on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Lead the design and implementation of scalable, highly available, and fault tolerant cloud architectures.
Establish and mature a comprehensive Information Security program.
Integrate security practices into the CI/CD pipeline through a DevSecOps approach.
Establish and enforce data governance standards.
Ensure all client data handling practices comply with FERPA, CCPA, state privacy laws, and applicable federal regulations.
Build and maintain a Security Incident Response capability.
Oversee vendor and technology partner risk management.
Manage infrastructure costs with disciplined FinOps practices.