About You
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at CARSOME is a pivotal executive role responsible for shaping and executing the company's ambitious "AI-first" technology vision. Reporting directly to the CEO, this individual will lead the entire Product, Technology, and Data (PTD) division and hold direct responsibility for the 2026 technology budget, which is intrinsically linked to achieving the group's EBITDA targets.
The CTO will partner closely with the senior Technical Leadership, and will be a key member of the executive team. The ideal candidate will possess deep technical expertise in our GCP-centric stack (Go, Node.js, Flutter, GKE, Vertex AI), strong financial acumen, and a proven ability to lead technology organizations to deliver significant business and financial outcomes in a pre-IPO environment.
We are seeking a visionary and strategic Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead our consolidated Product, Technology, and Data (PTD) division and drive our next phase of growth as an "AI-first" organization. As CTO, you will hold significant financial responsibility, steering the technology strategy to directly contribute to our ambitious 2026 Group EBITDA targets. Your primary and most immediate task will be to assume leadership of the 2026 budgeting and planning process, ensuring the technology roadmap is resourced to deliver on the company's financial goals.
Your Day-To-Day
- Financial & Strategic Leadership:
- Lead the annual budgeting and planning process for the entire technology organization.
- Develop and execute a technology roadmap and budget that directly supports the achievement of the group's 2026 EBITDA targets.
- Secure resources to address critical gaps in areas like cybersecurity, engineering and data science and to fund strategic organizational shifts, such as pivot to an AI-first organisation.
- Drive the long-term technology vision that solidifies CARSOME's position, ensuring our platforms are ready for public market scrutiny.
- Team Leadership & Organizational Development:
- Lead, mentor, and inspire a high-performing, multi-national PTD division, including Engineering, Product, IT Service Operations, and Cybersecurity in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.
- Partner closely with the SVP of Data to execute the Data & AI strategy, and foster a data-driven culture through our "Data Champions Program".
- Oversee the evolution of the engineering organization.
- Champion a culture of innovation and continuous improvement by embedding Agile, DevOps, and a "You build it, you own it" mindset.
- Nurture talent through established career ladders and learning initiatives
.
- Product & Technology Execution:
- Provide executive sponsorship and technical oversight for the company's most critical strategic projects, including:
- Strategic Overhaul of Capital Loan Management: Lead the implementation of a new Loan Origination/Management System (LOS/LMS) to slash loan approval times from days to under 30 minutes by automating the "happy flow" and migrating from legacy systems.
- AI Voicebot: Oversee the development of our generative AI-powered contact center solution with the goal of automating 50% of inbound customer service interactions.
- AI-Powered Pricing & Inspection: Continue to enhance our proprietary AI-powered pricing engine and AI-enhanced vehicle inspection systems.
- Direct the strategic transformation from a monolithic architecture to a scalable microservices-based platform.
- Oversee the strategic partnership with Google Cloud, optimizing our unified cloud infrastructure on GCP and managing cloud spend
.
- Provide executive sponsorship and technical oversight for the company's most critical strategic projects, including:
- Collaboration and Governance:
- Serve as a key strategic partner to the CEO, CFO, and the executive team, translating business goals into an actionable technology roadmap.
- Manage relationships and review commercial terms with key technology partners.
- Drive our Compliance and CyberSecurity Maturity Programs and ensure alignment with ISO27001 standards.
Your Know-How
- Education:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field is required. A Master's degree or MBA is a strong plus.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field is required. A Master's degree or MBA is a strong plus.
- Experience:
- 15+ years of experience in technology, with at least 8 years in a senior leadership role (e.g., CTO, VP of Engineering) in a high-growth, technology-driven company.
- Proven track record of building and leading high-performing, distributed engineering and product teams across multiple countries.
- Demonstrated experience managing technology budgets directly tied to company-wide financial targets (e.g., EBITDA) and presenting to C-level stakeholders.
- Experience leading a strategic architectural transformation from a monolithic to a microservices-based environment.
- Experience in e-commerce, marketplace, fintech, or automotive industries is highly desirable. Experience in a pre-IPO or public company environment is a significant advantage.
- Technical Expertise:
- Cloud Platforms: Deep expertise in Google Cloud Platform (GCP), particularly GKE, BigQuery, Vertex AI, and Looker.
- Architecture: Strong command of microservices architecture and experience leading a large-scale migration of 250+ services.
- Backend: Extensive experience with Go (GoLang) and Node.js. Familiarity with legacy systems in PHP is a plus.
- Frontend & Mobile: Knowledge of modern frontend frameworks (Vue.js, React) and mobile development with Flutter/Dart.
- Databases: Strong knowledge of relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis) databases.
- DevOps & Tooling: Deep familiarity with DevOps culture and tools, including CI/CD with GitLab and Argo CD, Infrastructure as Code with Terraform, and monitoring with Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog.
- AI/ML: Practical experience applying AI/ML technologies to solve business problems, with specific experience in generative AI, NLP, or predictive modeling being a major plus.
- Security & Compliance: A strong command of cybersecurity best practices and experience building secure platforms compliant with standards like ISO27001 / SOX
.
- Leadership and Business Acumen:
- Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to inspire a diverse, cross-functional team.
- Strong financial acumen and a proven ability to translate business goals into a technology strategy and budget that delivers financial results.
- A collaborative mindset and experience partnering effectively with a C-level data leader to execute a unified data and AI strategy.