Field CTO - Financial Services

Backbase•Atlanta, GA

20h

About The Position

The Field CTO is the highest individual contributor role in Customer Advisory, without direct reports or a management agenda. This role requires deep technical credibility to manage Backbase's most significant customer relationships. Externally, the Field CTO acts as a CTO-caliber technologist, earning the trust of bank CTOs and CIOs by engaging in architectural whiteboarding, challenging assumptions, and guiding them through complex technical paths. Authority is earned through quality of thinking, a strong track record in banking technology, and the ability to navigate discussions from data centers to boardrooms. Beyond individual accounts, the Field CTO is expected to influence industry thought by publishing, speaking at conferences, briefing analysts like Gartner and Forrester, and providing critical market intelligence to Backbase's Product and R&D organization to shape product development. This role is crucial for complex, high-stakes deals requiring a blend of architectural and strategic expertise.

Requirements

Operated at the intersection of banking technology and enterprise architecture at the highest level.
Either a technology executive at a financial institution or a Principal or Distinguished Architect with a track record of C-suite engagement.
Understand what a bank CTO actually worries about.
Ability to hold a credible conversation with engineering leads in the morning and their board in the afternoon.
Built opinions about platform architecture that you are prepared to defend, and know when to change your mind.
Deepest technical credibility in the room.
CTO-caliber technologist.
Track record in banking technology.
Ability to hold your own in any room, from the data center to the boardroom.

Responsibilities

Own the technical relationship with C-level executives (CTO, CIO, CDO) at Backbase's most strategic banking customers.
Build trusted advisor relationships that outlast individual deal cycles.
Lead the technical dimension of high-stakes engagements where input directly influences whether a bank commits to Backbase's platform.
Get genuinely hands-on with architecture, whiteboarding end-state platform designs spanning the full Backbase stack, integrated into the customer's existing landscape.
Turn the hardest technical objections into wins by combining architectural fluency with business context.
Drive competitive differentiation in head-to-head evaluations.
Represent Backbase externally at industry conferences, analyst briefings, and executive roundtables.
Publish thought leadership on digital banking modernization, platform architecture, and the intersection of AI, cloud-native, and composable banking.
Translate customer challenges and market signals into actionable product input, maintaining a direct line into Product and R&D.
Raise the technical bar across the Solutions Architecture community through the quality of work, standards, and willingness to go deep alongside Principal and Senior SAs.
Stay ahead of technology trends in banking (open banking, AI/ML, cloud transformation, regulatory tech) and translate them into Backbase's competitive positioning.