Chief Product & Technology Officer
$185,000–$200,000 year
On-sitePittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Job Summary
Own product direction and technical vision for ZAP's AMP platform, CRM, SAMS, and Schedule Today modules, synthesizing customer signals, usage data, and market insights to shift the roadmap from reactive to market-facing. Run product discovery personally through focus groups, advisory councils, and spec creation while establishing formal prioritization and release planning practices. Define and execute the technical architecture for a scalable, secure SaaS environment, driving consolidation of the legacy multi-codebase footprint and designing a unified data estate for analytics and AI. Lead the engineering team of 10 to 15, fostering an AI-first operating rhythm, reskilling staff, and managing performance directly. Serve as the CEO's primary partner on business direction and investment decisions, representing the product vision in executive and board conversations while pushing back on short-term velocity trades.
Required Qualifications
- Led a technology and product transformation in tandem, with specific delivery and adoption outcomes, and brought the team through the change rather than around it.
- Shipped AI-embedded product capabilities with measurable outcomes, or led sustained AI experimentation with clear conviction about where it creates durable value. Personal, daily agentic AI use, not talking about it at a distance.
- Owned product direction as the synthesis of customer signals, usage data, and market insights, and can point to a roadmap they moved from customer-reactive to market-facing.
- Owned a SaaS platform's security posture and compliance requirements (SOC 2, industry-specific standards) personally, not through a delegated security team.
- Designed or redesigned a data architecture that serves analytics, BI, and AI as a unified asset.
- Built and scaled an engineering team, including hiring, developing engineers into leaders, and managing performance directly. Addressed underperformance directly, not through HR.
- Made architecture and product investment decisions with direct commercial rationale tied to retention, revenue, or competitive moat, and can make an investment case a CFO would accept.
- Ran product discovery personally: customer conversations, spec creation, prioritization frameworks. Comfortable holding the product credibility of the company in enterprise sales cycles.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience in EdTech, higher education technology, admissions or enrollment management, CRM ecosystems, or comparable vertical SaaS with heavy customization patterns.
- Familiarity with centralized application services (AMCAS, CASPA, PharmCAS) or SIS/CRM integrations common in higher education.
- Background operating in an AWS-primary infrastructure environment with regulated data (FERPA or comparable).
- Track record consolidating a multi-codebase or heavily forked platform into a maintainable SaaS product without breaking client trust.
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