Chief Technology Officer

About OrthoAI

OrthoAI is pioneering AI-powered decision intelligence specifically for dentistry. Their initial product transforms complex clinical data into organized, transparent support systems for authorization processes that often involve high scrutiny. Based in Abu Dhabi, the company serves the UAE and broader GCC region, embedding clinical validation, traceability, and user safety at the core of their solutions.

Role Overview

The Chief Technology Officer will take full responsibility for OrthoAI's platform design, engineering operations, security framework, technical vision, and talent standards. This executive position involves unifying multimodal data perception, structured clinical inputs, cognitive reasoning, human oversight, authorization workflows, and feedback mechanisms into a manageable, auditable, and continuously improved system.

Success Metrics

• By 90 days: Define the target architecture, data flow, threat assessment, build vs buy strategy, clinical risk controls, and a prioritized technology roadmap.
• By 6 months: Deploy the initial controlled production release featuring automated tests, data and model lineage tracking, monitoring capabilities, rollback procedures, and incident management.
• By 12 months: Strengthen the platform for external release with reproducibility in model promotion, secure environment segregation, decision traceability, service monitoring, and field feedback integration.
• Assemble a critical engineering team and establish a weekly delivery and risk resolution process that transforms issues into systemic enhancements.

Key Responsibilities

• Establish platform scope and interface agreements spanning data intake, machine learning models, reasoning logic, applications, and third-party integrations.
• Set and maintain engineering excellence in code review, testing protocols, CI/CD pipelines, security practices, monitoring systems, release procedures, and incident learning.
• Govern security and privacy frameworks to protect sensitive healthcare information and manage enterprise integrations securely.
• Make documented architectural, infrastructural, vendor, and buy-versus-build decisions with clear trade-off analyses.
• Collaborate with clinical and scientific leadership on usage intentions, failure scenarios, human oversight mechanisms, and validation evidence for releases.
• Recruit, mentor, and uphold high standards for engineering talent, staying engaged with technical systems and evidence.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software or electrical engineering, or equivalent deep technical expertise; an advanced degree is advantageous but not mandatory.
• Minimum 12 years’ experience in software or platform engineering or technical product leadership; comparable experience considered.
• At least 5 years leading engineering teams alongside senior talent recruitment and architectural boundary design.
• Personal experience delivering and operating a machine-learning backed or data-centric product beyond prototype.
• Ownership of major architectural, security, vendor relations, reliability, or build-versus-buy decisions influencing business impact.

Technical and Functional Skills

• Direct experience progressing data-intensive or ML systems from prototype to robust production environments under real-world conditions.
• Strong expertise in APIs, data architectures, cloud infrastructure, application security, system reliability, and platform integration.
• Hands-on knowledge of model deployment, reproducibility, validation gates, monitoring, model drift detection, rollback, and feedback loops.
• Experience building engineering organizations including hiring, ownership model design, coaching, and performance evaluation.
• Ability to clearly communicate cause-and-effect trade-offs to diverse stakeholders including clinicians, scientists, commercial teams, investors and governance bodies.

Preferred Background

• Experience with medical AI, health technology, medical imaging, insurance workflow, or similarly regulated and high-stakes industries.
• Familiarity with structured clinical data, multimodal analysis systems, combined rule-based and learned reasoning, or explainable decision-support systems.
• Track record of founding or scaling executive roles involving tangible product outcomes and team building.

Distinguishing Evidence

• Documented architecture decision records outlining alternatives, threats, reversibility, monitoring, and human oversight considerations.
• Ownership of a major production incident or failed technical decision with analysis of resolution steps and recurrence prevention.
• Proven ability to recruit and develop a high-performance team with a culture of ownership and improved capabilities.

Work Culture at OrthoAI

• Clear individual accountability with defined interfaces and transparent delivery follow-through.
• Credibility earned through demonstrated domain success and logical reasoning rather than position or title.
• Written documentation of critical decisions, learnings from mistakes, root cause analyses, and process improvements.
• Interdisciplinary rigor connecting clinical, scientific, engineering, commercial, and operational evidence.
• Human accountability emphasizing that AI aids decisions but humans retain ownership and responsibility.

Core Values

• Pursuing truth over comfort: openly confronting difficult facts and adjusting views based on new evidence.
• Ownership without excuses: commitment to outcomes including managing dependencies and recovery.
• Placing evidence above opinion and differentiating observation, inference, and hypotheses.
• Uncompromising commitment to patient and user safety, escalating concerns when safety risks arise.
• Balancing speed with rigor: accelerating feedback loops without sacrificing necessary risk controls.

What We Provide

• Senior founding-role level scope with direct accountability for critical company results.
• Close collaboration with CEO and core founding members from clinical, scientific, engineering, and commercial disciplines.
• Significant influence over platform architecture, engineering practices, hiring, and strategic roadmaps.
• Challenging, meaningful work involving actual healthcare workflows and rigorously governed data.
• Competitive and above-market remuneration including base salary, substantial Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) equity, and comprehensive benefits—full details shared with shortlisted candidates.

Application and Selection

This is a full-time, on-site position located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Applicants must be authorized and willing to work in Abu Dhabi. Please clearly communicate your current UAE work authorization status or any required support for employment eligibility.

The recruitment includes an application and evidence review, structured interviews focusing on decisions and results, an evaluated practical working session, values-based assessments, and candidate-authorized references.