cto for education software

Aristek Systems develops innovative IT solutions for the US and European markets, including education software, AI-powered learning systems, eLearning applications, and learning management systems.

• Define department objectives, action plans, priorities, and timelines;
• Structure and refine workflows, delegate tasks, and adjust priorities;
• Ensure standards compliance, evaluate process efficiency, monitor productivity, and manage documentation and reporting;
• Motivate and engage team members, provide feedback and guidance, prevent burnout, and implement incentives;
• Drive internal and cross-functional collaboration, facilitate communication, and resolve conflicts;
• Act as Resource Manager for the department by allocating and reallocating engineers across projects;
• Maintain target department utilization, forecast capacity gaps and surpluses, and initiate hiring or reallocation;
• Provide staffing expertise for project and presales requests;
• Escalate unresolved project-versus-people resource conflicts to C-level and Heads level;
• Own hiring and dismissal decisions within the department and participate in interviews for key positions;
• Run performance reviews, PDP, and career development processes;
• Own development roadmaps for Team Managers;
• Build the succession pipeline, identify key people, and retain them;
• Grow the department’s technical competencies for current and prospective projects, presales, and new service offers;
• Act as the primary information channel to C-level on the department and related projects;
• Participate in defining and cascading company-level OKRs;
• Define department OKRs, involve the team in their formulation, track progress, and report results to C-level;
• Own the department’s financial efficiency and monitor engineer profitability with commercial owners;
• Monitor department salary levels against the market and initiate and justify revisions;
• Manage the department budget for training, tooling, and licenses;
• Participate in company-level financial and business decisions;
• Track market shifts and emerging technology trends;
• Translate technical expertise into market-relevant service offers;
• Identify and prioritize new capabilities for investment and development;
• Initiate and drive the development of new capabilities inside engineering teams;
• Aggregate expertise from different practices into coherent service offers;
• Validate new service offers technically and commercially through presales and client feedback;
• Iterate on, evolve, or sunset service offers based on market response and delivery results;
• Collaborate with other Heads to improve overall company efficiency;
• Design, discuss, and drive implementation of organizational processes beyond the backend department;
• Own the introduction and adoption of these processes across teams.

• Experience in an outsourcing or service company with 200+ employees in a management position with 50+ subordinates;
• 5+ Years of experience in Engineering Management or Team Leadership;
• 10+ Years of experience in Backend Engineering with a hands-on technical background;
• Strong knowledge of at least one major backend ecosystem: Node.js, Python, Java, Go, C#, or PHP;
• Strong knowledge of HTTP/REST, gRPC, and WebSockets;
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, query optimization, indexing, and data modeling;
• Hands-on experience designing scalable, high-load, resilient microservices or distributed systems;
• Profound knowledge of Git/GitFlow, complex codebases, code review standards, and API versioning;
• Deep understanding of clean code practices, DDD, SOLID, OWASP security standards, and automated testing;
• Hands-on presales experience, including project scoping, effort estimation, and risk assessment;
• Ability to participate in architectural and client meetings, advocate for technical solutions, and explain technical trade-offs to business stakeholders;
• Experience integrating AI into the SDLC and other engineering or organizational processes beyond AI-assisted coding;
• Nice to have: hands-on experience with AWS/GCP/Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines; experience with Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK stack; conceptual knowledge of React, Angular, or Vue.

• Fully remote work is available;
• 20 Paid vacation days per calendar year;
• 3 Paid days per calendar year for temporary medical absence without sick leave;
• Partial payment for medical insurance;
• Partial payment for a monthly gym membership;
• 50% Payment for an English-learning partner service;
• English paired classes and an English speaking club with certified teachers;
• Team buildings, corporate parties, and other extracurricular events;
• Gifts for birthdays, weddings, and the birth of a child;
• Partial payment for advanced trainings, conferences, and educational courses;
• 50% Payment of Spotify Premium;
• 50% Payment for an affiliate service providing access to more than 250,000 books;
• Partial compensation for a laptop purchase;
• Referral program;
• Knowledge base;
• In-house learning and development manager.