Hiring: Chief Technology Officer Company: Ovative Group Location: Chicago, IL Job Posted Time: 2026-09-03 11:30:21 Employment Type: Contract / Remote Target Skills & Keywords : AWS, Accessibility, Azure, CI/CD, ClickUp, Data Lake, Databricks, EMR, GCP, LLM, Product Management, RAG, SOC 2, SaaS, Slack, Systems Design About the job Experience: •18+ years of engineering experience; 7+ years leading engineering managers in high-growth environments — with a track record of delivery, not just direction Required Skills: •Ovative is at an inflection point — building an AI-native agency model on top of EMRge, our established proprietary marketing intelligence platform, with the ambition to double the business over three years. As CTO, you will own the technology vision that makes that possible and lead the engineering organization that delivers it. •This role demands both depth and breadth: executive leadership over an established engineering organization, hands-on architectural judgment to build something net-new, and the credibility to represent Ovative’s technology externally to clients, partners, and the industry. •Own — not just translate — the technology vision for Ovative; set strategic direction that achieves near- and long-term business goals and convert it into a technology product roadmap in partnership with Product Management •Oversee the architectural direction for both EMRge and the AI OS, ensuring systems are built to scale and adapt. •Lead the evolution and enforcement of engineering standards across the organization: reliability, scalability, security, observability, CI/CD practices, and infrastructure-as-code — so deployments are repeatable, auditable, and low-risk. •Represent Ovative’s technology vision externally: with clients, prospective clients, and industry forums — building credibility that supports business development and client retention. •Lead EMRge engineering — the Databricks data lake, platform services, client-facing capabilities, and infrastructure that power our core products — by directly leading the Engineering Senior Director to set direction, remove blockers, and hold the team accountable to a high bar. •Partner with Product Management to align engineering capacity to highest-impact roadmap priorities; maintain SOC 2-compliant, enterprise-grade engineering practices. Qualifications: •Proven track record as a hands-on technical leader — able to engage credibly at the architecture and system design level, not just the organizational level. •Demonstrated experience architecting enterprise integration and orchestration systems — connecting SaaS platforms, APIs, and data sources into coordinated workflow layers, including bidirectional write-back to operational systems. •Production experience with LLM-based systems: RAG pipelines, agent orchestration frameworks, MCP or equivalent tool-use patterns, and LLMOps practices including output evaluation and cost management •Strong build vs. buy instincts — vendor evaluation, contract management, and pragmatic integration vs. custom build judgment. •Clear communicator across technical and non-technical audiences — engineers, product partners, clients, and executives; comfortable in board-level and client-facing conversations •Prior IC background in software, data, or ML/AI engineering •Operational familiarity with marketing technology, measurement, or analytics-heavy SaaS environments •External thought leadership: conference speaking, technical writing, or industry presence in AI or data engineering Compensation: •We strive to hire and retain the best talent by offering fair, competitive compensation, a meaningful bonus program, and excellent health coverage Interested candidates, please apply directly through the job posting on company's career page or try via AI auto apply on this platform. Don't miss this opportunity to join a forward-thinking team!