Field CTO

Shelf•San Francisco, CA

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Field CTO will serve as Shelf's primary technical authority in customer facing engagements, combining deep technical expertise with strategic sales leadership. You'll take ownership of the critical technical sales function currently handled by our CTO, partnering with Account Executives to close deals across the entire pipeline while building and leading a team of Sales Engineers. This role offers immediate impact and long term growth potential. You'll engage with Enterprise Architects, CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and AI Leaders to demonstrate how Shelf solves data quality challenges preventing GenAI initiatives from reaching production. Your ability to rapidly solution during fast-paced 3-5 day pilots and translate complex technical concepts into business value will be crucial to driving revenue success. Reporting to our CTO with a strong dotted line to our VP of Sales, you'll influence product direction while staying laser-focused on sales outcomes. The ideal candidate is a former CTO or VP of Engineering who has transitioned to customer-facing roles, with experience building technical teams in high-growth B2B SaaS environments. Founder or early employee experience is a significant plus.

Requirements

10-15+ years combining technical leadership with customer-facing roles in enterprise B2B SaaS
Former CTO, VP of Engineering, or senior technical executive with proven customer engagement experience
Deep expertise in enterprise architecture, AI/ML technologies, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), and data platforms
Experience building and leading technical teams in high-growth environments
Demonstrated ability to influence revenue through technical leadership
Exceptional presentation and communication skills with technical and executive audiences
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Nice To Haves

Founder or early employee experience strongly preferred

Responsibilities

Serve as primary technical authority in strategic customer engagements across the sales pipeline
Lead technical discovery, solution design, and presentations demonstrating Shelf's value
Drive rapid high-stake pilots that prove measurable value and convert to closed deals
Build and lead a Sales Engineering team
Create scalable processes and best practices for technical sales excellence
Collaborate with CTO and Product leadership to provide market insights and influence roadmap based on technical sales engagements
Partner with other sales roles to drive technical wins across the ecosystem
Contribute to thought leadership through select conferences, content creation, and sales enablement materials
Maintain deep expertise in AI/GenAI trends, competitive landscape, and enterprise technology ecosystem