Field CTO, AI

Avahi • San Francisco, CA

4d • Remote

About The Position

Avahi is seeking a technical leader to own the AI conversation externally with customer CIOs and enterprise architects, with AWS account teams, on stage, and in print. This role is a peer to the CTO and CRO, serving as the public face of Avahi's AI point of view and leading the field and solutions team to convert strategic conversations into signed work. This is not a hands-on-keyboard role, but requires a senior technical leader with credibility from shipping real AI systems, the ability to engage Fortune 500 CIOs, and the leadership to guide a team that closes deals. The role encompasses AI GTM strategy, customer-facing AI advisory, AWS-facing evangelism, solutions engineering and AI pre-sales leadership, and building a demo and reference architecture portfolio. It also involves partnership with the CTO and CRO to ensure alignment between what is sold and what can be built.

Requirements

• 15+ years in enterprise technology, with the last 5+ focused on AI/ML, GenAI, or applied data science at scale.
• Experience shipping real systems, even if not writing production code currently.
• Field CTO, Principal SA, or VP-level customer-facing experience at AWS, another hyperscaler, an AI platform company (Databricks, Snowflake, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere), or a top-tier consultancy.
• Experience leading hundreds of enterprise AI conversations.
• Deep AWS fluency, including architectural knowledge of the AWS AI/ML stack (Bedrock, SageMaker, Q, agentic services).
• A working network within AWS partner and AI/ML teams.
• Executive presence, capable of engaging Fortune 500 CIOs and large conference audiences.
• Proven team leadership experience, having built and run technical pre-sales or solutions engineering teams of 10 to 30 people.
• Startup Founder/Business fluency, understanding P&L, services unit economics, deal margin, utilization, and pipeline.
• Bias to ship: Prototypes over polish, POCs over decks.

Nice To Haves

• Services or consulting leadership experience at scale.
• Published author, recognized conference speaker, or industry voice in AI/ML.
• Existing relationships with AWS AI/ML partner leadership.
• Experience selling into regulated industries (healthcare, financial services).

Responsibilities

• Own AI GTM strategy, defining Avahi's AI/GenAI go-to-market approach including industries, use cases, buyer personas, and leading AWS services.
• Serve as the senior technical voice in largest enterprise pursuits, leading AI strategy conversations with customer CXOs and enterprise architects, and translating AI hype into deployable architecture.
• Build deep relationships with AWS solutions architects, partner managers, and AI specialist teams to ensure Avahi's involvement in AI opportunities.
• Speak at industry events like re:Invent, Summits, and partner forums.
• Author Avahi's AI point of view through long-form and short-form content, and be a recognized industry voice.
• Own the team responsible for building demos, running POCs, and providing technical sales support.
• Build a portfolio of AI demos and reference architectures.
• Co-own the seam between platform engineering and revenue execution with the CTO and CRO.

Benefits

• Remote-First Flexibility: Work from anywhere.
• Innovative Culture: Embrace creativity, agility, and growth.
• Career Development: Mentorship and opportunities for advancement, with potential for full-time roles after initial contracts.
• Purpose-Driven Mission: Champion diversity, support women in tech, and foster sustainable practices.
• Global Collaboration: Work with a diverse, talented team.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed