CTO

Channel Fusion; Hiawatha (IA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Channel Fusion in Hiawatha, IA seeks a full-time Chief Technology Officer to lead AI strategy, modernization, and architecture. You will establish a rigorous real-time operating system and measurement framework to give visibility into output, quality, and business impact, and build a scalable technical foundation.

The CTO owns technology strategy, cybersecurity, platform readiness, and enterprise delivery, aligning engineering, cloud security, and client delivery with the CEO and executive team,

Qualifications

• 15+ years of technology leadership experience in enterprise software/SaaS/MarTech/channel marketing platforms.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field; advanced technical or business education preferred.
• Led design and delivery of AI-assisted software in a live engineering organization with measurable results.
• Track record modernizing legacy platforms while continuing to ship to paying clients.
• Experience leading distributed engineering teams, including India-based teams.
• Excellent executive communication skills to align engineering, cloud/security, and client delivery.

Responsibilities

• Build a comprehensive technical foundation demonstrating platform scalability and operational excellence.
• Establish metrics and targets for client onboarding efficiency and configuration.
• Launch AI-assisted delivery pilots with measurable improvements in cycle time, quality, and reliability.
• Provide architecture direction and hands-on technical leadership within the engineering org.
• Create an operating framework with dashboards and economics to guide decisions.
• Report progress to the CEO/ELT with clear, actionable insights.

Skills

Technology leadership

CTO/VP experience

AI-assisted delivery

Legacy modernization

Distributed engineering teams

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Advanced technical or business education preferred

Job description

CTO

Channel Fusion Hiawatha, Iowa, United States

About this position

Channel Fusion is accelerating its AI-enabled platform strategy and technical organization during a critical growth window. We are seeking a full-time Chief Technology Officer to lead AI strategy, technical modernization, and architecture direction: establishing a rigorous, real-time operating system and measurement framework for engineering that provides visibility into output, quality, and business impact, and building a comprehensive technical foundation that demonstrates platform scalability, architectural maturity, and operational excellence. This is a full-time, hands‑on operating role — not an advisory role.

The CTO owns technology strategy, architecture standards, AI-enabled engineering transformation, cybersecurity and platform-risk direction, technology investment priorities, and enterprise technical readiness. The Head of Engineering reports to the CTO and owns the engineering organization, engineering people leadership, and day‑to‑day software delivery. The VP, Cloud Security & Client Delivery also reports to the CTO and owns cloud and security operations, compliance execution, service reliability, and client‑delivery execution. The CTO aligns these functions and resolves cross‑functional technology, roadmap, security, client, and investment tradeoffs with the CEO and executive leadership team.

Core Mandate

• Technical Readiness & Operating Baseline — Build a comprehensive technical foundation that demonstrates platform scalability, architectural maturity, and operational excellence to internal stakeholders and enterprise partners. This includes: stored‑procedure inventory, technical debt registry (with owner, business impact, remediation plan for every material item), modernization status evidence (production validation, monitoring, rollback testing, legacy deprecation), and infrastructure/scalability metrics (concurrent users, transactions per minute, multi‑tenant support, cost per 1,000 transactions).
• Client Onboarding Scalability — Establish clear metrics and targets for client onboarding efficiency, documentation, and platform‑driven configuration to enable faster, more predictable client launches, and build the roadmap to onboard new clients at scale without linear growth in engineering headcount.
• AI Strategy & Productivity — Establish an engineering baseline and launch a controlled AI‑assisted delivery pilot within the first 30 days using a live codebase and real delivery workflows. Within the first 90 days, demonstrate measurable improvement in cycle time or throughput without deterioration in quality, security, or production reliability. Define a validated rollout plan for the remaining pods based on pilot results, including projected engineering and AI‑tooling economics.
• Architecture Direction — The CTO will initially serve as Channel Fusion's senior architecture authority and assess the technical‑leadership model during the first 30 days. The CTO may recommend principal‑level architecture capacity where demonstrated workload, technical risk, or delivery leverage justifies it. Any such position will be structured as a hands‑on technical role within the engineering organization rather than as an additional management layer.
• Operating Framework — Establish a real‑time management system that provides visibility into organizational output: a weekly pod‑level scorecard (mission, committed vs. delivered outcomes, revenue/retention supported, team size, work mix, cycle time, quality, loaded cost, and capacity, investment, ownership, and operating recommendations for each pod), and a technology economics model (fully loaded org cost, cost by pod, revenue/retention by pod, AI tooling/token costs, RPE tracking against target, and modeled efficiency, investment, capacity, and operating‑leverage scenarios).
• Executive & Board Engagement — Report progress against a monthly operating and readiness dashboard directly to the CEO/ELT; translate technical reality into terms leadership and enterprise partners can act on.

Key Qualifications

• 15+ years of technology leadership experience within enterprise software, SaaS, MarTech, or channel marketing platforms; prior experience as CTO, SVP, or VP of Engineering/Technology at meaningful scale.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent demonstrated experience required; advanced technical or business education preferred.
• Personally designed and led the implementation of an AI‑assisted software delivery system in a live engineering organization — not simply sponsored, approved, or directed one from a distance. Able to speak specifically to the tools, workflow design, failure modes encountered, and measurable before‑and‑after results (cycle time, defect rates, throughput, or cost).
• Track record modernizing legacy platforms while continuing to ship to live, paying clients — real modernization under real constraints, not a greenfield build or an unconstrained migration.
• Experience leading distributed engineering organizations, including India‑based teams — familiar with the timezone, communication, and career‑development dynamics required to build genuine technical ownership and trust across geography.
• Able to connect technical investment decisions to business outcomes — client onboarding speed, release velocity, operational resilience, and enterprise value — not just architectural or code‑quality terms.
• Deep working knowledge of modern AI technologies: LLMs, tokenization, prompt engineering, RAG, vector databases, GPU/cloud AI infrastructure, and AI software stacks, sufficient to personally design and lead an AI‑native engineering organization.
• Experience directing enterprise‑grade, cloud‑native, secure, multi‑tenant SaaS architecture at the senior‑most technical level.
• Technical diligence experience — has built or defended a technical readiness package (debt inventory, architecture risk, scalability evidence) for board, executive, enterprise‑partner, or other senior stakeholder review.
• Excellent executive communication skills; able to lead a multi‑functional technical organization (engineering, cloud/security, and client delivery) as a unified executive team.
• Genuine investment in building organizational bench strength over time, including mentoring and developing technical leaders as part of a collaborative, growth‑oriented leadership approach.
• MarTech / Through‑Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) experience — desirable, not required.

What Success Looks Like — First 90 Days

• A complete, evidence‑based Technology Operating Pack in active use (pod scorecard, AI productivity proof, tech economics, engineering operations charter, technical readiness baseline).
• Clear, quantified metrics and targets for client onboarding efficiency and platform‑driven configuration, with a documented roadmap to scale.
• A monthly operating and readiness dashboard populated with real baselines and trending in the right direction on debt reduction, modernization, and scalability.
• At least one priority engineering pod has used the new AI‑assisted delivery system to ship a meaningful client‑visible or operationally important production outcome, with documented before‑and‑after evidence covering cycle time, quality, cost, and required manual effort.
• A validated resilience and disaster‑recovery baseline is complete, including recovery‑time and recovery‑point requirements, backup and restoration evidence, material infrastructure risks, and a prioritized remediation plan.
• Clear decision rights, operating boundaries, escalation paths, and shared performance metrics are established across the CTO, Head of Engineering, and VP, Cloud Security & Client Delivery — including the interfaces among engineering delivery, cloud operations, security and compliance, client commitments, and architecture governance.