Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in Stuttgart

We are looking for a CTO who wants to build, not just maintain: someone who will own the technology behind an AI-powered platform that is changing how European manufacturers digitalize, and who will shape the engineering organization that takes it to the next level of scale.

This is a true executive mandate. As CTO, you will own the full technology agenda: platform, AI products, engineering, quality and the way we deliver for customers. You will be the CEO's closest technology partner and the face of RockQ Technology towards the board, investors and customers.It is also a role designed to grow. As the RockQ group expands, the CTO will play a central part in shaping how engineering scales across sites and businesses, defining the operating model, standards and leadership structure that let us grow without losing speed.If you enjoy building organizations as much as building technology, this is that opportunity.

Your Responsibilities

• Own the technology vision and platform Set and own the technology strategy and roadmap for our No-Code / ML Studio platform and AI products, in close partnership with the CEO and product leadership. Shape the platform architecture for its next phase of scale: performance, extensibility, security, compliance and resilience. Translate business ambitions into clear technology decisions; own the technology budget and resourcing plan.
• Lead an AI-native engineering organization Lead a distributed engineering organization across Germany, and Romania with team leads across platform, QA, DevOps and AI. Design the organization, operating model and engineering standards that will carry us through growth, and evolve them as the business expands. Drive the adoption of AI-assisted development across the lifecycle (code generation, automated testing, code review, performance optimization) and integrate tools such as Claude Code, Cursor or Copilot Enterprise with the right security and quality guardrails. Own delivery cadence, sprint planning and release management.
• Make quality and reliability a competitive advantage Build quality engineering into every stage of the delivery lifecycle, with strong automation, coverage and accountability. Shape a scalable customer support and incident response model, with clear SLAs and escalation paths, as our customer base grows.
• Build the team and represent technology Attract, develop and retain senior engineering talent; grow a strong leadership bench. Act as technology partner to the CEO, board and investors, and represent RockQ externally with customers, partners and the wider industry.

Your Profile

• Experience 10+ years in software engineering, including 5+ years as CTO, VP Engineering or equivalent, with a hands-on architecture background. Proven leadership of distributed, multi-site engineering organizations, ideally across both product/platform teams and customer-facing delivery. Track record of scaling engineering organizations, raising the bar on quality, and building strong leadership teams. Background in no-code/low-code, SaaS or manufacturing/industrial software is a strong plus; experience scaling organizations through growth or M&A is a plus.
• Technical depth Strong system architecture, API and database design; comfortable across multiple technology stacks. Hands-on full-stack experience: Node.js with Express and TypeScript, React, MySQL (Microsoft SQL Server a plus). Strong experience with Docker, Linux-based environments and Git; AWS and/or Azure, across both cloud and on-prem deployment models. Experience adopting AI-assisted development tooling at team scale, with a clear view on security, quality controls and AI in testing and code review. Message queues (e.g. RabbitMQ) and high-performance or data-intensive systems are a plus.
• Leadership Excellent communicator, fluent in English; a structured problem solver who turns ambiguity into a plan. A clear, solution-oriented leader who addresses issues head-on. Comfortable with budgeting and planning, and a trusted partner to the CEO, management team and board.

What We Offer

• Real ownership. A seat on the Executive Leadership Team, reporting directly to the CEO, with genuine influence on company strategy. Industrial AI with real-world impact. Your technology runs in factories, not slide decks. A mandate that grows with you. Shape how engineering scales across the RockQ group as it expands. AI-native from day one. The backing to build a modern, AI-assisted engineering culture from the top. International and flexible. Work from Stuttgart or Prague, with teams across Europe.

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