Chief Technology Officer

PETE TONG DJ ACADEMY
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Rome, Italy · Full time · On site / hybrid · Reports to the CEO · Builds and leads the technology team (target ~5 to 6 engineers by End 2027)
About Pete Tong DJ Academy
Pete Tong DJ Academy (PTDJA) is the career platform for the next generation of DJs and producers. Founded with Pete Tong and Carl Cox and a roster of world class artists, we combine structured education, community and real career opportunities in one subscription, serving members in more than 140 countries. We have just raised to scale, and our mission is to empower one million artists.
The role
We are hiring a CTO to own the platform behind PTDJA and turn it into a product members love and competitors cannot copy. Today we run a modern, integrations first stack: a community campus, subscription billing, CRM and automation. Your mandate is to evolve it into our proprietary product machines: artist pages, a release manager, a gig finder, an AI feedback engine and a personalized member journey, while building the data platform (event tracking, warehouse, predictive analytics) that powers every growth and retention decision we make. You report to the CEO, inherit a lean web/IT function, and hire the founding engineering team.
Your north star
Ship fast, build only what differentiates, and make every member feel the product knows them: reliability up, proprietary features live, and one trusted data platform behind every decision.

What you will own
Platform architecture and the integrations first stack: community campus, subscription billing, CRM and marketing automation, website and funnels, and the glue between them.
The proprietary product roadmap: artist profile pages, release manager, gig finder and event tools, a points and unlocks journey, and the feedback machine.
The data platform: event tracking design, BigQuery warehouse, product analytics (Mixpanel), and predictive churn and LTV models, one source of truth serving the growth and retention teams.
Applied AI in production: AI feedback on student mixes and tracks, AI first customer care, and personalization, pragmatic LLM products with real users and measured quality.
Security, GDPR compliance, uptime, vendor management and the technology budget.
Building and leading the engineering team: web/IT (in place), a data/BI engineer, full stack product engineers and an applied AI engineer, hired by you.
Key objectives (first 12 months)
Data foundation
Ship the event tracking + warehouse + predictive layer as the company's single source of truth
Product machines
Take the first proprietary features (artist page, release manager) from concept to live
AI in production
Launch AI feedback and AI first support with measured quality and adoption
Build the team
Hire the founding engineers and set a fast, pragmatic engineering culture

Requirements (must have)
8+ years in software and product engineering, with at least 3 years leading engineers (CTO, VP or Head of Engineering at a startup or scaleup).
You have shipped consumer facing products (subscription, app, marketplace or platform) with real users and revenue, not only internal or enterprise systems.
Buy over build judgement: a track record of assembling SaaS building blocks (billing, community, CRM, automation) and building custom only where it creates advantage.
Modern web stack fluency (for example TypeScript, React, Node or similar), and you still read, review and occasionally write code.
Data platform ownership: you have designed event tracking and owned a warehouse plus product analytics stack that a business actually ran on.
AI shipped to production: at least one LLM or ML feature live with real users, and you can explain how you evaluated its quality.
Small team, fast cycles: comfortable being hands on with 2 to 6 engineers and no platform team around you; cost aware by instinct.
Fluent English (working language). Based in Rome or willing to relocate; able to work on site / hybrid.
Nice to have
Passion for or background in music, audio or the creator economy (audio ML experience is a real plus).
EdTech, membership or community platform experience (Circle or similar ecosystems).
You have scaled a product from thousands to hundreds of thousands of users.
Experience with subscription billing systems and payment/dunning flows.
Working Italian (or willingness to learn).
What we offer
A rare chance to build the platform behind a category defining brand in electronic music, reporting to the CEO.
Real ownership: the architecture, the roadmap, the team and the budget are yours.
Competitive compensation with a performance bonus tied to clear KPIs, and upside for the right person.
A creative, ambitious team, a world class artist network, and members whose careers your product helps launch.