Chief Technology Officer (CTO) AirParts Aero Northern Virginia / Washington, D.C. Area Executive Leadership | Full-Time Build the Technology Platform for the Future of Aviation Commerce AirParts Aero is building the digital infrastructure for the global aerospace aftermarket. We are creating a platform designed to connect aircraft operators, airlines, government customers, OEMs, distributors, MROs, repair stations, service providers, and aerospace suppliers through a unified commerce, data, and intelligence ecosystem. We are looking for a Chief Technology Officer to help lead that transformation. This is not a maintenance role. We are looking for a deeply technical executive who can help define the architecture, engineering organization, development standards, and long-term technology strategy behind a platform intended to operate at significant scale across the aerospace industry. The right candidate will be both a builder and a leader —someone capable of setting long-range technical direction while remaining close enough to the technology to challenge architecture, review critical decisions, and help solve difficult engineering problems alongside the team. What You Will Help Build AirParts is expanding beyond traditional ecommerce into a broader aerospace operating platform.

Our roadmap includes capabilities across:

Buyer and seller platforms Aerospace parts and inventory management RFQ and quoting infrastructure Global supplier connectivity Search and discovery AI-assisted procurement Product and technical-data management Traceability and certification workflows MRO and repair services Rotable and serialized-asset management Government and defense procurement Enterprise integrations Fulfillment and logistics Data intelligence Marketplace automation The CTO will play a central role in determining how these capabilities are engineered into a secure, scalable, maintainable platform. The Role The CTO will own AirParts' overall technology architecture and engineering execution. You will work directly with the CEO, Chief Strategy Officer, product leadership, operations, quality, and engineering teams to translate business requirements into durable technical systems. You will be responsible for ensuring that AirParts makes sound decisions across: Application architecture Platform architecture Data architecture AI architecture Infrastructure Security Integrations Developer experience Engineering processes Technical hiring Build-versus-buy decisions You will also help establish the technical standards that guide AirParts as the company scales. Key Responsibilities Technology Architecture Define and evolve the technical architecture supporting AirParts' marketplace, enterprise, and aviation-data platforms.

Design systems capable of supporting:

Large product catalogs Complex B2B transactions High-volume RFQ activity Distributed inventory Supplier integrations Regulated aviation data Global fulfillment AI-assisted workflows Establish clear technical standards for services, APIs, integrations, infrastructure, and data systems. Data & Intelligence Help design AirParts' next-generation aerospace data architecture. The platform must bring together information from many different sources, including: OEM data Supplier feeds ERP systems Technical documents Government sources Historical transactions Seller-provided product information Inventory records Certifications and traceability documents The CTO should have experience designing systems that can normalize, reconcile, enrich, govern, and search large and complex datasets. Experience with areas such as master data management, entity resolution, knowledge graphs, semantic search, or data provenance is highly valuable. AI Lead the technical strategy for AI across the AirParts platform.

Potential areas include:

AI-assisted search Procurement automation Seller and buyer assistants Document intelligence Data enrichment Classification and extraction Retrieval-augmented generation Knowledge systems Workflow automation AI-assisted operations The successful candidate should understand the difference between a compelling AI demonstration and a secure, reliable production AI system. Search & Discovery Help build a world-class search experience for aerospace. AirParts search must ultimately understand far more than keywords. It must help customers discover relevant parts, related products, technical information, inventory, suppliers, repair capabilities, and other commercially relevant information. Experience with enterprise search, semantic retrieval, search ranking, vector search, or graph-based discovery is strongly desirable. Engineering Leadership Build and lead a high-performance engineering organization. The CTO will establish and enforce strong development practices around: Automated testing CI/CD Code review Version control Architecture documentation Infrastructure as code Security Observability Release management Incident response Technical documentation Development environments QA and test automation The goal is to create an engineering organization capable of shipping quickly without sacrificing reliability or technical discipline. Infrastructure & Scalability Guide AirParts toward a modern, scalable application platform. Experience with technologies and practices such as the following is highly relevant: Python PostgreSQL APIs Containers Kubernetes Cloud infrastructure Infrastructure as code Distributed systems Search platforms Graph technology Event-driven architecture Caching Observability AirParts values architectural flexibility and intends to make technology selections based on long-term technical and economic fit rather than unnecessary dependence on any single vendor. Enterprise Systems Our existing environment includes significant ERP and marketplace infrastructure. The CTO will help evolve that environment while ensuring that enterprise platforms serve the broader architecture rather than define it. Experience integrating or modernizing ERP environments is valuable. Experience with Odoo or similar enterprise systems is helpful, but this is not an ERP-administration role. Security & Regulated Environments AirParts operates within the commercial aviation, government, and defense ecosystem. Our technology must account for requirements involving areas such as: Access control Auditability Export-control considerations Controlled information Government contracting Cybersecurity Data protection Traceability Regulatory documentation Experience in aerospace, defense, government, finance, healthcare, or another highly regulated environment is highly valuable. Certain responsibilities may require eligibility to access U.S. export-controlled or government-restricted information. What We Are Looking For We are looking for a CTO with substantial experience in several of the following areas: Large-scale software architecture Distributed systems Python PostgreSQL Modern APIs Cloud infrastructure Kubernetes and containers Data engineering Data modeling Search systems AI and LLM systems Knowledge graphs Master data management Entity resolution Event-driven systems DevOps CI/CD Security architecture Engineering management We care more about what you have successfully built than where you went to school. The Ideal Candidate You are still technically curious. You enjoy difficult architecture problems. You understand how to balance speed, scalability, reliability, security, and cost. You can explain complex technical decisions clearly to non-technical executives. You know when to build proprietary technology and when to use mature commercial or open-source systems. You understand that not every problem requires microservices. You know that AI architecture involves far more than calling an LLM API. You are comfortable challenging assumptions—even those coming from senior leadership. You can move between technical depth and executive decision-making without losing effectiveness at either level. What We Are Not Looking For This role is unlikely to be a fit for someone who: Wants to operate only at the management level Has become completely removed from technical architecture Defaults automatically to one cloud provider or software vendor Believes every problem should be solved with microservices Treats enterprise architecture primarily as documentation Is uncomfortable operating in a fast-moving growth environment Cannot make difficult build-versus-buy decisions Is unwilling to challenge poor technical assumptions Why This Role Matters Aviation remains highly fragmented across manufacturers, operators, distributors, repair facilities, government systems, technical publications, inventory platforms, and legacy software. AirParts believes there is a major opportunity to create a more connected digital infrastructure for the aerospace aftermarket. The problem is much larger than building another ecommerce platform. We are working to make aerospace procurement, supply, service, and information significantly more connected, intelligent, and efficient. The CTO will help determine how that vision becomes real. The Opportunity This role offers the opportunity to influence foundational technology decisions at an early and important stage of the company's growth.

You will help shape:

AirParts' technical architecture Engineering organization Data strategy AI strategy Platform roadmap Infrastructure Security Development standards Technical hiring Long-term technology investments If you are a technologist who wants to help build infrastructure for an industry rather than another incremental software product, we would like to speak with you. About AirParts Aero AirParts Aero is building the digital commerce and technology infrastructure for the global aerospace aftermarket. Our mission is to make aviation procurement faster, more intelligent, more transparent, and more connected while maintaining the quality, security, traceability, and regulatory discipline the industry requires. We are not simply putting aviation procurement online. We are building the platform on which the next generation of aviation commerce can operate.

Pay:

$63,153.54 - $120,000.00 per year

Benefits:

Employee assistance program Employee discount Flexible schedule Paid time off Parental leave Professional development assistance Tuition reimbursement Application Question(s): What makes you think you are the right person for this CTO role for our startup? Do you have a passion for aviation? Are you a pilot or an A&P also? An enthusiast?

Location:

Fairfax, VA 22032 (Preferred)

Work Location:

Hybrid remote in Fairfax, VA 22032