Field Chief Technology Officer (Field CTO) – AI & Modern Data Analytics
About the role
About MinIO
MinIO is a pioneering, high-performance, Kubernetes-native object storage suite. Built for the hybrid cloud, MinIO is the foundation for modern data infrastructure, powering enterprise AI/ML, analytics, and application data across the globe. As the world's fastest-growing object storage company, our S3-compatible platform is renowned for its speed, simplicity, and scalability, uniquely solving the "GPU starvation" problem in AI workloads and serving as the bedrock for modern data lakehouses.
Role Overview
We are seeking a highly technical, visionary, and customer-centric Field CTO to act as our premier technical ambassador. In this role, you will bridge the gap between MinIO’s engineering innovation and the strategic business needs of our largest, most complex enterprise customers. As a Field CTO, you will engage in peer-to-peer conversations with enterprise C-suites (CIOs, CTOs, CDOs) and lead architectural discussions with principal engineers. A deep, hands-on understanding of modern AI architectures (LLMs, RAG, deep learning pipelines) and modern analytics data systems (Iceberg, Delta Lake, Trino, Spark) is mandatory. You will not only evangelize MinIO’s capabilities but also act as a trusted advisor, helping organizations architect their data infrastructure to support next-generation workloads. This role is Bay Area, CA based.
What You Will Do
- Executive Advisory & Evangelism: Act as a trusted technical advisor to C-level executives at Fortune 500 companies. Articulate the strategic value of high-performance object storage in the context of AI readiness and data democratization.
- Architectural Leadership: Design and validate complex, large-scale architectures for enterprise customers. Guide them in integrating MinIO seamlessly into their AI/ML pipelines and modern data lakehouse ecosystems.
- Industry Thought Leadership: Represent MinIO at major industry conferences, webinars, and meetups. Write technical whitepapers, reference architectures, and blog posts focusing on the intersection of object storage, generative AI, and modern analytics.
- Pre-Sales & Post-Sales Strategic Support: Partner closely with enterprise sales and customer success teams on high-stakes deals. Unblock technical objections and provide strategic guidance during Proof of Concepts (PoCs) and large-scale deployments.
- Product Strategy Feedback Loop: Serve as the "voice of the customer" to MinIO’s product and engineering teams. Distill market trends, customer pain points, and emerging AI/Analytics patterns into actionable product requirements.
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in technical leadership roles (e.g., Enterprise Architect, Chief Architect, VP of Engineering, or previous Field CTO).
- Demonstrated experience in a customer-facing or evangelist capacity, successfully presenting to both highly technical audiences and C-level business executives.
AI & Machine Learning Architectures:
- Deep architectural understanding of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), including Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) workflows and vector databases (e.g., Milvus, Qdrant, Pinecone).
- Strong knowledge of AI/ML data pipelines and frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, Ray, Hugging Face).
- Understanding of hardware bottlenecks in AI, specifically the challenge of feeding data to GPUs (GPU data starvation) and how high-throughput storage solves this.
Modern Analytics & Data Systems:
- Expertise in Open Table Formats (Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi, Delta Lake) and their integration.