Chief of Staff – CTO

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Serbia.

📋 Description

• Oversee the engineering leadership cadence, which includes director-level syncs, agendas, documented decisions, and follow-through.

• Lead the quarterly OKR and QBR cycle, managing objective updates, follow-ups, issue escalations, and preparation for reviews.

• Keep an up-to-date record of leadership decisions and commitments, ensuring they are driven to completion.

• Identify stalled or unassigned cross-team projects and assign named ownership.

• Manage special projects by chartering, planning, tracking, and transitioning them to permanent owners.

• Create clear, decision-ready materials for the CTO, executive team, and board-level stakeholders.

• Facilitate delegated decisions to documented closure, addressing stalled decisions and communicating their outcomes.

• Standardize engineering leadership planning, tracking, and communication through rituals, templates, and operating rhythms.

• Collaborate across the organization on cross-cutting initiatives, procurement, pilot contracts, and budgeting for engineering tools.

• Actively incorporate AI into daily tasks and identify opportunities for AI to enhance functional processes.

• Establish an operating cadence, identify unassigned initiatives, take charge of the OKR/QBR loop, and set baselines within the first 90 days.

• Work in coordination with Engineering Directors, Product, Data/Analytics, Executive Team, BizOps, Finance, Legal, and IT.

• Evaluate performance through follow-up closures, named ownership, OKR updates, CTO workload reduction, project reactivation, and successful transitions.

⛳️ Requirements

• Proven experience managing the operating system of an engineering organization, likely in a role such as TPM lead, head of engineering operations, or similar.

• Experience in owning cadence, planning, and cross-team coordination on an organizational scale.

• Demonstrated ability to take ownership of ambiguous, multi-team initiatives and deliver them through influence without direct authority.

• A history of transforming complex information into concise, decisive materials suitable for executive-level audiences.

• Capability to build sustainable operating systems and follow-up processes.

• Ability to collaborate effectively with engineers, engineering managers, and directors while gaining their trust.

• Sufficient technical understanding to engage in technical discussions and coordinate them without being the technical authority.

• Proficiency in English (C1+) and Russian for both internal and external technical communications.

• Active engagement with AI in daily tasks and a willingness to enhance AI proficiency.

• Previous experience as a Chief of Staff, in Engineering Operations, or as a TPM lead reporting to engineering leadership (preferred).

• Familiarity with operational efficiency in engineering organizations of 100+ individuals and automation/AI tools (preferred).

• Experience with procurement, vendor contracting, or budgeting (preferred).

• Familiarity with nonprofit tech or the payments domain (preferred).

• Knowledge of Node.js/NestJS, React, MongoDB, ClickHouse, Kafka, Cloudflare, PCI DSS 4.0.1, SOC 2 Type II, or ISO 27001 (preferred).

🏝️ Benefits

• Private medical insurance for the employee and their family.

• 20 paid vacation days each year.

• 15 paid public holidays annually.

• 5 company-paid sick leave days.

• English language learning courses.

• Relevant professional development opportunities.

• Access to a gym or swimming pool.

• Home Office Setup Assistance: the company provides support for purchasing furniture (office chair, office desk, monitor) and other items to create a comfortable workspace.

• Co-working options available.

• Remote working flexibility.