What are the responsibilities and job description for the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) position at FELFEL?
IN SHORT
We are seeking a hands-on Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead our technology organization. As a key member of the executive team, the CTO will drive the company’s technological strategy and innovation, ensuring alignment with our long-term business goals.
You will oversee and guide four cross-functional technical teams: Data & Analytics, Tech Software Engineering and IoT, Product Owner, and IT Workplace. You will ensure alignment across these teams with the broader technology, product, and business strategy.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
- Lead the planning and execution of technology roadmaps and key projects across all sub-teams, ensuring alignment with business goals
- Drive the evolution of our technical architecture and platforms to support innovation, scale, and operational excellence
- Build strong collaboration and support channels with our US office to coordinate cross-market initiatives and deployments
- Drive team and people development across all four sub-teams, fostering a high-performing, collaborative, and growth-oriented tech culture
- Take full budget and cost responsibility for the four sub-teams
- Evaluate, select, and manage external development partners including agencies and outsource partners
- Participate in the management team: report transparently, set realistic expectations, and lead with integrity and accountability
- This role is not hands-on coding day-to-day but requires deep technical understanding and the ability to engage with engineering teams at architecture and decision-making level.
YOUR PROFILE
- Master’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or equivalent
- Extensive experience in a senior technical leadership role
- Proven track record of managing and scaling tech teams in high-growth, international environments
- Deep understanding of software development, system architecture, and Data
- Strong strategic thinking and execution skills
- Exceptional leadership, interpersonal, and communication abilities
- Entrepreneurial mindset with a hands-on, proactive approach
- Passion for innovation and building great products
- Fluent in English and German; French is a plus
- Non-smoker: You don’t smell like cigarettes and don’t smoke during the day; after all, FELFEL is about healthy living.
- EU/EFTA or Swiss work permit
OUR BENEFITS
- Lots of delicious food, just a few steps away from your desk - we make your gastronomic dreams come true
- Best barista coffee and tea for the whole team, thanks to our innovative Gavetti coffee machine
- 5 weeks holiday per year, as well as two full weeks of ‘work from anywhere’ per year to bring more variety to your work day
- We encourage our employees to use public transport by covering your half-fare travelcard
- New parents get 16 or 3 weeks, respectively, of fully paid parental leave. We also support the return to work by making a generous financial contribution to childcare until the child reaches kindergarten age.
- Great team events, such as our well-known FELFEL Summer Outing
OUR TECH STACK
Our platform is built using a modern, cloud-native architecture. We run our services on Azure, containerized with Docker and orchestrated via Kubernetes. Infrastructure is defined with Pulumi and managed through ArgoCD for GitOps-style deployments.
On the frontend, we rely on React and TypeScript to deliver rich, maintainable web interfaces. Backend services are primarily developed in C#/.NET and Python 3. For Python-based services, we use Django alongside SQLAlchemy.
Our IoT layer powers smart fridges and devices using ARM-based SBCs running a custom Android OS, along with an in-house Android application. For our Gavetti product line, we deploy a headless controller built on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, running BalenaOS with a containerized Go application.
Our data stack includes Python, DBT, and Snowflake, orchestrated with Airflow and visualized primarily through Tableau.
MORE ABOUT US
FELFEL is all about good food and coffee in the workplace: we help Swiss employers become masters of hospitality.
With our smart fridge ‘FELFEL’ and delicious barista coffee ‘Gavetti’, we enable companies to provide their employees with first-class, ultra-fresh food and drinks throughout the day. Whether hearty and traditional, modern and vegan or high in protein - our weekly changing menu ensures that all employees always have something to be excited about ;).
FELFEL is a family business that was founded in 2013. Today, we take care of around 1000 locations in Switzerland, and have 150 employees across our offices in Lausanne, Zurich and New York.
www.felfel.ch
Start: As soon as possible
Pensum: 80-100%
Location: Zürich Wiedikon
