Engineering Lead/ Head Of Prod

About GeniWay

GeniWay Technologies is building AI-powered products that help students learn effectively and make confident education and career decisions.

Our first product, Clario, combines multidimensional student assessment, career intelligence, personalized guidance, and AI-assisted counselling for Indian students and families.

With Clario’s initial platform nearing completion, our next major ambition is to build an AI-powered personalized learning platform that adapts learning experiences to each student’s knowledge, goals, learning patterns, motivation, and progress.

We are looking for an AI-native engineering leader to help turn this ambition into a trusted, scalable product.

The Opportunity

We are hiring a Founding AI Engineering Lead, CTO Track to become GeniWay’s full-time technical operating leader.

Your primary mandate will be to lead the engineering of our AI-powered personalized learning platform. You will also own the continued evolution, reliability, and scale-readiness of Clario.

This is not a conventional engineering management role or a role limited to integrating third-party AI APIs. It requires someone who can combine:

• deep applied-AI expertise;
• strong product and architectural judgment;
• hands-on full-stack engineering;
• engineering-team leadership; and
• responsible deployment of AI for students.

For an exceptional leader who demonstrates sustained company-level technology leadership, this role offers a credible pathway toward becoming GeniWay’s future CTO.

What You Will Build

The personalized learning platform is expected to progressively support:

• continuously evolving learner profiles;
• personalized learning pathways and interventions;
• adaptive content, practice, and assessments;
• AI tutors, mentors, and learning companions;
• multi-agent workflows for learning support and content operations;
• student progress, mastery, and engagement intelligence;
• evidence-grounded recommendations for students, parents, and educators;
• responsible human oversight, safety, and explainability.

You will help define the architecture, technical strategy, and delivery roadmap required to build these capabilities responsibly.

What You Will Own

AI Product and Platform Engineering

• Own the architecture and engineering of GeniWay’s personalized learning platform.
• Translate learning-product concepts into reliable AI-powered experiences.
• Design and build GenAI, agentic-AI, and ML-enabled workflows.
• Determine when to use LLMs, deterministic logic, retrieval, conventional ML, or human review.
• Build reusable AI-platform capabilities instead of isolated prompt-based features.
• Lead experimentation, evaluation, production deployment, and continuous improvement of AI capabilities.

Applied AI Quality and Safety

• Establish evaluation frameworks for accuracy, relevance, personalization, consistency, latency, and cost.
• Design safeguards against hallucinations, unsafe guidance, bias, prompt injection, and inappropriate student interactions.
• Build observability and feedback loops for AI behaviour in production.
• Ensure student-facing AI systems are explainable, privacy-conscious, age-appropriate, and human-supervised where required.
• Work with product and domain specialists to validate educational usefulness, not merely technical performance.

Product Engineering and Delivery

• Own end-to-end engineering delivery across AI, backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure.
• Lead or personally implement critical product capabilities when required.
• Establish predictable planning, development, testing, release, and incident-management practices.
• Scale and strengthen Clario while building the next product platform.
• Balance speed, product quality, maintainability, scalability, and operating cost.

Architecture and Data Foundations

• Define and evolve the application, AI, data, and cloud architecture.
• Build secure foundations for learner profiles, content intelligence, personalization, and analytics.
• Establish effective data pipelines, model interfaces, APIs, and platform services.
• Make pragmatic build-versus-buy and model-selection decisions.
• Reduce technical debt and material technology risks systematically.

Team and Technology Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and raise the effectiveness of the engineering team.
• Build strong AI and software-engineering practices across the organization.
• Help recruit future AI, data, and product engineers.
• Work closely with the Founder on product strategy, priorities, and technology investments.
• Develop GeniWay’s longer-term technology strategy and engineering organization.

Essential Capabilities

• Strong hands-on experience building and operating AI-powered products in production.
• Deep practical understanding of GenAI application architecture, LLM behaviour, prompting, context engineering, and structured outputs.
• Experience building agentic or multi-step AI workflows with appropriate controls and observability.
• Experience with retrieval-augmented generation, embeddings, semantic search, or knowledge systems.
• Ability to evaluate AI quality systematically rather than relying on subjective demonstrations.
• Strong Python, backend, API, database, and system-design capabilities.
• Ability to lead full-stack product engineering beyond the AI layer.
• Experience leading engineers and owning complex product delivery.
• Strong product judgment and ability to translate ambiguous goals into executable plans.
• High ownership, urgency, reliability, and transparent communication.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience building personalization, recommendation, adaptive-learning, tutoring, or conversational-AI products.
• Practical AI/ML experience involving experimentation, feature engineering, model evaluation, or predictive systems.
• Experience with LLMOps or MLOps, including evaluation, monitoring, versioning, and deployment.
• Experience designing AI guardrails and responsible student-facing systems.
• Experience as a founding engineer, technical lead, or early engineering leader.
• Experience building AI-native products from zero to one.
• Interest in learning science, education, and student outcomes.

What We Are Not Looking For

• A pure people manager who is no longer technically hands-on.
• A research-only AI specialist without strong product-engineering capability.
• Someone whose GenAI experience is limited to basic chatbot or API integrations.
• A generalist engineering leader with little evidence of applied-AI delivery.
• An advisor seeking influence without full-time operating accountability.

What Success Looks Like

First 90 Days

• Take operational ownership of GeniWay’s engineering function.
• Understand and strengthen Clario’s architecture, quality, and scale-readiness.
• Define the technical architecture and phased roadmap for the personalized learning platform.
• Establish AI evaluation, safety, engineering-quality, and release practices.
• Improve team accountability, execution rhythm, and delivery predictability.

First 6-9 Months

• Deliver the first meaningful version of the personalized learning platform.
• Establish reusable foundations for learner modelling, personalization, AI agents, evaluation, and observability.
• Demonstrate measurable educational and product value from AI capabilities.
• Build a dependable engineering and AI delivery organization.
• Demonstrate readiness for broader CTO-level responsibility.

Compensation and Growth

• Fixed compensation: ₹20L–₹25L per annum, based on capability and experience
• Performance-linked variable: Up to 15%–20%, tied to agreed outcomes
• Initial ESOP grant: Approximately 0.75%–1.25%, based on fit and expected ownership
• Leadership equity top-up: Potential additional 0.5%–1% after 12–18 months, based on sustained contribution and evolution toward CTO-level responsibility
• Leadership review: Formal assessment after six months, followed by a broader role and compensation review after 12 months

The CTO pathway is earned through demonstrated technology strategy, AI-product leadership, organizational impact, and company-level ownership.

Selected candidates will complete structured discussions covering applied-AI depth, architecture, hands-on engineering, product judgment, responsible AI, leadership approach, and long-term alignment.

CTO / Head of Engineering

About our Client

Our client is a B2B2C tech firm backed by India’s largest retailer and tech venture capitalist founded by founders - IITB Graduates who are experienced in retail, ecommerce and fintech

It aims to become one app to manage all your brands loyalty points, cashback and coupons. It will have additional content and discovery layer for customers and brands for further engagement and commerce.

The company currently powers closed-loop loyalty programs for all different brands under its parent retail group. Currently, it has 20Mn+ registered customers and 3Mn MAU across 8 brands. Its vision is to be at the center of D2C Brands and the consumer consumption ecosystem

Role description:
We are looking for a competent CTO (Chief Technology Officer) who will be our first technology go-to expert and play an integral role in setting the company’s strategic direction, development and future growth. In this position, you will oversee our overall technology development and technology utilization plan to manage all information technology resources of our company.

Key Responsibilities

•  CTO will be leading, building, and operating exciting products with a passionate team.
•  We are looking for someone who has developed and deployed software with a strong focus on end-user experience. We are seeking someone with a proven track record of shipping web scalable products.
•  The ideal candidate will have a track record of building and delivering cloud solutions with delightful consumer experiences, combined with ease of implementation/reliability.
•  Experience with massively scalable distributed compute product architectures.
•  Experience with micro services-oriented architectures, Experience with scaling Big Data infrastructure.
•  Experience delivering platform technology and creating an ecosystem of applications and services across multiple verticals and solution offerings
•  Experience successfully scaling technology infrastructure to support rapid customer /data growth.
•  Experience with fast-paced, rapidly-iterating, design-forward, product-focused companies.
•  "Roll-up-your-sleeves" entrepreneurial, start-up attitude, team player with record of leading and mentoring employees

Candidate Experience: Desired skills

•  He/she should have prior work experience of 7-12 years on large-scale mobile app products and can rapidly familiarize yourself with complex products
•  Have inclination to learn and build new age products with blockchain and web3 tech
•  Strong track record of being able to develop and set release plans, track deadlines, deliverables, resource allocations, issues/risks and create mitigation strategies as needed to deliver a quality product on time
•  Strong technical and architecture skills in wide areas of platform engineering with proven ability to dive deep in any area as needed.
•  Extensive experience with eCommerce platforms, cloud systems, payment solutions, digital marketing technology, automation, and multi-device development is required; AWS experience is a strong plus
•  Experience managing Small teams and remote teams is a strong plus
•  Competent in driving a culture of continuous learning to improve technology and remove roadblocks that hold the team back.

Why is this a great opportunity for the right candidate :

•  Experienced founding team
•  Backed by Future Group which gives an edge over working with different D2C and traditional brands ecosystem which is necessary to win in this market
•  Existing app customer base of 20Mn registered and 4-5 Mn MAU + which gives us a head start and starting customer base of FuturePay necessary for pivoting the product to Carrot as described earlier
•  Right to win - The founding team knows the business & its secrets inside out. We are starting with a significant head start and a precise plan of action
•  Barriers to entry - This is a specialized play with natural barriers to entry, allowing for significant value creation for all equity holders
•  Exposure to all aspects of company building - exposure to investors, fund-raising, decision making, building the team & culture
•  All of the above perks of joining a high potential company very early, along with a competitive market salary.

Role Description

Location - Bangalore / Remote/WFH

This is an equity-only role.

We are looking for a young but mature mindset with highly skilled Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to provide sound technical leadership in all aspects of the business. This person will be added as a Co-founder in the Team.

CTO should be able to take technical decision and having a Strategic thinking mindset with strong business acumen. We expect you to be well-versed in current technological trends and familiar with a variety of business concepts.

You will work directly with the CEO and will act as both a technology and business expert, making decisions that will impact the current and future operations of the company. If you are self-motivated, emotionally strong, enjoy challenges and have a never give-up approach, we’d like to meet you.

CTO / Co- Founder Responsibilities

Lead the technology division with new-age technologies and processes

Build on the vision for the organization by technology

Identify new opportunities and develop products and processes in line with cutting edge technologies

Deploy, develop and implement solutions in a cost-efficient manner

Experience in building scalable products, platforms, and modern technologies

Experienced on the internet/ e-commerce industry, B2B platforms, start-up setups is a plus

Hands-on experience in digital initiatives, big data, mobile apps, AI & ML, analytics, and business intelligence solutions

Ability to convert data into usable modern technology-driven solutions

Experience or knowledge on AWS server side is required

Requirements

B.E / B.tech / Masters Degree in computer science or related field.

6+ years of working in a technological role is preferable but not mandatory

Experience working in an early-stage tech start-up will be a plus

A strong product sense and can build engaging tech for customers

Ability to conduct technological analyses and research

Deep knowledge of full-stack modern development practices (node.js, angular, java javascript, AWS, DS, react, etc.) Can work / learn and work on AI/ML

Have a proven understanding of best engineering practices for the full software development life cycle (SDLC), including coding standards, code review, source control, build, test, deploy, and operations

Experience in project management to ensure timely deliverables

Strong communication skills with the ability to present the technology vision confidently in a way that motivates others both internally and externally

About First Principles

We are a Tech Holding Company and our portfolio companies generate millions in revenue. What is unique about FirstPrinciples is that most of our companies remain controlled and majority owned by First Principles and its team members rather than by external investors. We are proud that our product engineering team builds world class products from India. https://firstprinciples.io/">https://firstprinciples.io/

About this Role

As we scale and build our organisation, we would like to add an individual to our core Technical Leadership who can scale our key products and projects and help us build and foster relationships with Enterprise clients.

We are looking for an experienced Technology Leader to join our fast growing organisation to help us with driving Technical Strategy, Approach and oversee the Implementation for internal and external products. You should be someone who loves Engineering, have amazing debugging skills and slay problems with technology. 

In this role, you will undertake Technical / Solution Architecture and should also be able to help team with Engineering and coding wherever required. That includes, working along with the team, writing code, doing R&D or POCs, ensuring we follow modern industry standards and building beautiful high performing Software and Applications and thus delivering a better solution and product. You will also help FP build strong relationships with clients and technical leadership on the client side.

You would be required to have a minimum of 10+ years of experience with a mix of Engineering, DevOps, Infrastructure, Cyber - Network Security, Enterprise Application Maintenance, Database Management along with Project, Client and People Management skills which are necessary to lead the team and be their voice. You should be a leader and not just a manager who loves delegating things to the off-shore team, but rather someone who would not hesitate to take over Git-Pull and start writing code and show ‘here is how it’s done’ and amaze everyone with your expertise! :-) 

Because this is a Senior role, you would also be involved working with the Product/Project Manager and will be responsible for the delivery and output.

Tech Stack [High-Level]: We are JavaScript focused i.e. we work in ReactJS, NodeJS, AngularJS, TypeForm, TypeScript, Redis. On the server side, we work with AWS/GCP/DO. Database: MySQL, PostgreS and MongoDb. API: REST and GraphQL API. We also have a strong DevOps stack - including Kubernetes(K8), Dockers and CI/CD automation. 

Interview Process: 

• 60 min Discovery Call
• 15 mins introduction and what you bring to the table (We love people who say, “We build the damn table”) 
• 15 min understanding your experience and background
• 15 min on why you want to join our team and your expectations, future plans
• 15 min Q&A
  
  
• 60-90 min Technical Interview  (May be more than 1)
• Technical Call
  
  
• 45-60 min Final Call
• 15 min discussion on results 
• 15 min CTC expectations / negotiations 
• 15 min closure
• 15 min buffer

• Draw up enterprise-wide architecture blueprint and enforce its implementation across products and systems
• Build from ground up, a scalable Enterprise platform infrastructure with multiple client applications and enterprise connectors
• Design, develop and deploy features and APIs with high quality standards
• As an individual contributor, evaluate technology options, build PoCs and prototypes
• Manage the infrastructure hosted in the Cloud. Monitor system reliability, uptime and security.
• Contribute significantly in reviewing architecture, code, design & test-cases authored by peers.

• 8-10 years of design and development experience building scalable & distributed systems
• Hands-on experience on one or more of the following tech stacks:
  • Python-Django, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, nginx, RabbitMQ, Redis
  • Microservices, REST APIs, NodeJS, Celery, Elastic Search, Logstash, Kibana
• Good understanding of OOPS concepts, design patterns, SQL. Good at troubleshooting/debugging.
• Experience with managing server infrastructure in GCP, Azure and AWS cloud.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Engineering from reputed institutes
• Nice to have: Hands-on experience with analytics using Kibana and Elastic Search