Field CTO

Job description

## About us PhysicsX is a deep-tech company with roots in numerical physics and Formula One, dedicated to accelerating hardware innovation at the speed of software. We are building an AI-driven simulation software stack for engineering and manufacturing across advanced industries. By enabling high-fidelity, multi-physics simulation through AI inference across the entire engineering lifecycle, PhysicsX unlocks new levels of optimization and automation in design, manufacturing, and operations — empowering engineers to push the boundaries of possibility. Our customers include leading innovators in Aerospace & Defense, Materials, Energy, Semiconductors, and Automotive. # The Role The Deployment Engineering team is responsible for deploying the PhysicsX platform into customer-owned infrastructure. This is a technically complex, high-stakes process: working with customer IT teams to map their environment, navigating security and compliance requirements, standing up the infrastructure needed to run our Kubernetes-based Platform, and seeing the deployment through to success. You'll be accountable for the end-to-end success of these deployments. As a Field CTO, you are the Deployment Engineering leader for your region — the person who owns both the relationships and the results. You'll be the primary point of contact for the CIOs and CTOs of our most strategic accounts, building the kind of trusted technical partnership that turns a deployment into a long-term relationship. At the same time, you'll lead and grow the deployment team for your region, setting the standard for how we deliver and scaling the team to match our ambitions. This is a hybrid role. You're expected to lead at the executive level and roll up your sleeves when the situation calls for it. The best candidate will be someone who has built and shipped complex infrastructure systems, and who can translate that experience into credibility and clarity when sitting across the table from a customer's engineering leadership. # Who We're Looking For **Technical depth with executive presence.** You have a strong engineering background — in infrastructure, platform, or systems engineering — and the communication skills to make complex topics land clearly with a CIO or CTO. **Customer-first instinct.** You build trust with customers by being straight with them: on timelines, on constraints, on what's possible. You understand that a successful deployment is only valuable if the customer feels confident throughout the process, and you hold yourself accountable for that experience. **Leadership that scales teams.** You've hired and developed technical people and have a track record of building teams that execute at speed. You set high standards, coach others to meet them, and create the environment for your deployment engineers to do their best work. **Commercial awareness.** You understand the relationship between technical delivery and commercial outcomes. You'll work closely with delivery teams to make sure the deployment programme aligns with what customers have committed to, and you're not afraid to flag when it doesn't. **Comfort in complex, regulated environments.** Our customers operate in sectors where security, compliance, and infrastructure governance are non-negotiable. You've navigated these environments before — whether working with on-premise infrastructure, air-gapped environments, or enterprise IT organisations with lengthy approval processes. **Platform release enablement.** You understand how enterprise software platforms are versioned and shipped at scale. You'll work closely with the infrastructure team to shape how PhysicsX delivers platform version upgrades in the field — bringing the customer-facing context, operational insight, and cross-team coordination needed to ensure upgrades land reliably and on a cadence customers can plan around. # What a Day Might Look Like **Executive engagement.** Lead technical conversations with customer CIOs and CTOs — scoping deployments, resolving escalations, and building the trust that keeps strategic relationships strong. Represent PhysicsX as the senior technical voice in your region. **Deployment oversight.** Own the deployment programme across your accounts. That means understanding the status of every active deployment, identifying blockers before they become problems, and being the person your team and your customers can rely on when things get complicated. **Cross-functional alignment.** Work closely with delivery leads in New York and elsewhere to make sure commercial commitments and deployment realities are in sync. Surface risks early. Provide the ground-level input that shapes how we scope and sell deployments. **Team building.** Recruit, onboard, and develop deployment engineers in your region. Define what good looks like, create the processes that make the team repeatable at scale, and build a culture of technical rigour and customer accountability. **Hands-on involvement.** When a deployment is particularly complex — a novel infrastructure environment, a difficult security review, a customer escalation that needs senior technical judgement — you get involved directly. You're not a pure manager; you're the most experienced person on the team. # What We're Looking For - A track record of leading technical teams delivering complex infrastructure or platform deployments into enterprise environments - Strong experience with Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, Open Stack, RHOS) — enough to lead technical conversations with your team and with customer engineering leadership. You will need to be accountable for the technical quality of the team’s output. - Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tooling (Crossplane, Terraform, Helm) and the OCI ecosystem - Experience navigating enterprise IT organisations: security reviews, procurement processes, and stakeholder management across technical and non-technical audiences - Proven ability to build relationships with senior technical executives (CTO, CIO, VP Engineering) at large organisations - Experience hiring and growing technical teams - Excellent communication skills — written, verbal, and in the room - Willingness to travel to customer sites within your region, and occasionally internationally, for an average of 3–4 weeks per quarter - Experience in regulated or high-security environments is a must - Experience with on-prem / HPC type “scientific” environments is a nice to have ## **What We Offer** ### Build what actually matters Help shape an AI-native engineering company at a formative stage, tackling problems that genuinely matter for industry and society. This is work with real-world impact — and something you can be proud to stand behind. ### **Learn alongside exceptional people** Work with a high-caliber, collaborative team of engineers, scientists, and operators who care deeply about doing great work, and about helping each other get better. We come from diverse backgrounds, but we share a commitment to operating at the highest level and addressing some of the most complex challenges out there. If you’re ambitious, thoughtful, and driven by impact, you’ll feel at home. ### **Influence over hierarchy** We operate with a flat structure: good ideas win - wherever they come from. Questioning assumptions and challenging the status quo isn’t just welcomed, it’s expected. ### **Sustainable pace, long-term ambition** Building meaningful technology is a marathon, not a sprint. We believe in balancing focused, ambitious work with a life beyond it. Our hybrid model blends time together in our New York office with work-from-home days, giving you the flexibility to work sustainably while staying connected in person. **And it doesn’t stop there …** 🚀 **Equity options** - share meaningfully in the company you’re helping to build. 💰 **5% contribution to** **401(k)** - build long-term security with a strong retirement plan. 🍽️ **Free team lunch 1x/week** - good food, great company, and space to connect. 🏥 **Private health insurance** – comprehensive cover for you, offering total peace of mind. 👶 **Enhanced parental leave** – 3 months full pay paternity and 6 months full pay maternity leave, to provide extra flexibility during the moments that matter most. **☀️ 20 days of Annual Leave (+ Public Holidays)** - because taking time to rest matters. 📈 **Personal development** – dedicated support for learning, development, and leveling up over time. 💪 **Gympass / Wellhub (subsidized)** – for you and up to 3 family members, supporting both physical and mental wellbeing. 💳 **Flexible Spending Account (FSA)** – set aside pre-tax dollars for eligible healthcare expenses. **Salary range: $240,000 - $300,000 depending on experience. Seniority will be assessed throughout our interview process.** We value diversity and are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation or gender identity. We strongly encourage individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in tech to apply. To help make a change, we sponsor bright women from disadvantaged backgrounds through their university degrees in science and mathematics. We collect diversity and inclusion data solely for the purpose of monitoring the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policies and ensuring compliance with UK employment and equality legislation. This information is confidential, used only in aggregate form, and will not influence the outcome of your application.