Chief Technology Officer

80Twenty is a boutique recruitment agency that connects high-growth companies with exceptional candidates

About the Company

Our client is a nonprofit education organization that has spent more than two decades helping children build early reading, math, and social-emotional skills. Its programs reach millions of families and classrooms through the web and through apps on every major device platform. A small, long-tenured team of artists, educators, and technologists builds both the learning content and the systems behind it. Schools and parents rely on its reputation for content that is always available and loads without delay.

About the Role

This is the organization’s first Chief Technology Officer. You will own every system that delivers content and serves subscribers, and you will set the technical direction for the years ahead. The first mandate is clear: a subscriber on any platform should have access everywhere, delivered within 90 days. Reliable school single sign-on should follow within six months. Over the first year, you will turn a custom-built platform into documented, clearly owned systems backed by a multi-year roadmap. You will report to the President, sit on the executive team, and lead a team of seven.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the technology strategy and a roadmap tied to the mission and budget, and report progress and risk to leadership and the board in plain language
• Lead and develop the software and IT teams, setting priorities, milestones, and deadlines
• Deliver unified subscriptions so one subscriber’s access holds across web, Apple, Android, and Amazon devices
• Decide whether to extend the in-house subscriber system or adopt a subscription platform, and lead any data migration that follows
• Own architecture decisions for server-side software, databases, and integrations, including school single sign-on and rostering
• Protect fast, reliable content delivery and plan server, hosting, and capacity needs
• Secure subscriber data and systems, keeping them backed up and compliant with app store requirements and children’s and student privacy laws
• Build durable engineering practice through documentation, version control, code review, and clear ownership of every system
• Deliver trustworthy reporting on subscribers, usage, and revenue
• Select and manage vendors and contractors, and advise the content team on the technical side of apps and websites

Qualifications

• Bring 10 or more years in software engineering and IT, including leading technical work, with at least 4 years managing technology teams
• Work hands-on with PHP and JavaScript web applications and relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL
• Have built and run the server side of in-app purchases and subscription billing across Apple, Google, Amazon, and the web, including receipt validation, store server notifications, and keeping one subscriber’s access in sync across platforms
• Have taken over legacy custom systems and improved them step by step, without a risky full rewrite
• Have planned and completed database design and data migration projects
• Apply working knowledge of Unix-like server hosting and security practices
• Set milestones, deliver projects on schedule, and manage outsourced developers and implementation partners
• Hold a bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or information systems, or equivalent experience; an MBA or master’s degree is a plus
• Bring experience with school single sign-on and rostering platforms and with selling to schools and districts, which is a plus
• Know COPPA, FERPA, and state student privacy requirements, which is a plus