CTO / Tech Team Lead (AI Learning Labs)

CTO / Tech Team Lead - AI Learning Labs

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Posted Date Jun 02, 2026 Employment Type Full-time Experience Level Executive Location India Category ** Programming ** Company **navgurukul **

CTO / Tech Team Lead - AI Learning Labs

NavGurukul · AI Learning Labs

CTO / Tech Team Lead - AI Learning Labs

About NavGurukul & AI Learning Labs

NavGurukul is a not-for-profit on a mission to democratise aspirational careers for learners from underserved communities.

Join us in building AI-powered learning for India at scale. Imagine a future where India's 248 million students have access to personalized learning experiences tailored to how they learn, not how a standardized curriculum assumes they should. Government platforms like DIKSHA, UPI, and Aadhaar have shown us that transformative technology can reach national scale when built with intention and adopted by the state. The opportunity to do this for learning is vast, and it is happening now.

But here is the catch: learning is not like UPI. A transaction works the same way whether you are in Delhi or Dharwad. Learning, though, is radically different. A Class 9 student grasping algebra needs something entirely different from someone learning music, from an adult upskilling, from a rural learner in Muzaffarpur with intermittent connectivity. No single application solves this. The education system has known this for decades and done almost nothing about it.

That is where you come in. We have spent years working closely with learners and educators, and one thing we have learned, sometimes the hard way, is that forcing a single platform onto the rich and varied reality of learning rarely works. So we are taking a different approach: building focused, context-specific applications, each pedagogically grounded and proven to deliver real impact before we scale. A tool for foundational maths. One for vocational skills. One designed around how a first-generation learner actually engages. AI is what makes this feasible at pace. It personalises within each context and dramatically shortens our development cycles. Over time, these applications will grow into something larger and more integrated. But we are earning that, one proven solution at a time.

This is Bharat tech at its finest: problem-first, people-centred, and built for the billions. If you are a technical builder who wants your work to matter, where shipping code directly improves how millions of young Indians learn, we are looking for you.

Role SnapshotPosition - CTO / Tech Team Lead — AI Learning Labs Function - Engineering & AI Leadership Location - Remote with ~30% travel to Igatpuri HQ and campuses Experience - 8+ years in AI/ML or full-stack engineering Employment - Full-time | Nonprofit pay structure

About the Role

We are looking for a CTO / Tech Team Lead to anchor the engineering and AI vision of AI Learning Labs. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will set the technical north star, architect the AI/ML and full-stack systems that power our learning platforms, and build a mission-driven engineering culture from the ground up.

You will lead a team of AI/ML engineers and full-stack developers, partner closely with product, design and pedagogy teams, and own the technology roadmap end to end from compact, client-side LLMs that work on low-end devices, to the platforms that bring those models to millions of learners.

In This Role, You Will Interested in remote work opportunities in Development & Programming? Discover Development & Programming Remote Jobs featuring exclusive positions from top companies that offer flexible work arrangements.

Drive AI Strategy & Innovation

• Own the AI/ML technology roadmap for AI Learning Labs and align it with NavGurukul's mission to impact 1 crore learners.
• Design, fine-tune and deploy advanced LLMs (GPT-style, BERT, open-source models) and Mixture-of-Experts applications for diverse, real-world learning use cases.
• Lead experimentation with compact, efficient models (TinyGPT, DistilBERT, Transformers) optimised for client-side, low-resource and on-device inference.
• Establish AI-driven decision intelligence frameworks to enhance learning outcomes and organisational efficiency.
• Stay ahead of the curve on Generative AI, RAG, agents and emerging frontiers — and translate them into practical, learner-facing applications.

Architect & Scale Engineering

• Lead the architecture of AI/ML and full-stack learning systems backend, frontend, data, ML and infrastructure while still staying close to the code.
• Build robust, scalable engineering infrastructure that supports millions of learners across web and mobile, with a strong focus on performance, security, reliability and cost.
• Define and uphold engineering excellence: code quality, CI/CD, testing, observability, MLOps, model evaluation and responsible-AI practices.
• Architect APIs (REST and GraphQL), data pipelines and integrations across the AI/ML stack, product, and learning content systems.
• Make pragmatic build-vs-buy decisions and shape the tech stack to balance innovation, cost and long-term maintainability.

Build & Grow the Tech Team

• Mentor and grow a mission-driven team of AI engineers, ML engineers, and full-stack developers.
• Hire thoughtfully set the bar for engineering talent and build a culture rooted in ownership, curiosity, kindness and impact.
• Coach engineers on architecture, code review, technical writing and career growth.
• Establish lightweight processes that help a small team punch far above its weight.

Create Real-World AI Applications

• Partner with product, design and pedagogy leads to build AI applications that directly improve learning personalised tutors, adaptive content, assessment systems, and AI-powered tools for teachers and mentors.
• Champion responsible AI: build with attention to bias, safety, privacy and the realities of underserved learners.
• Use AI internally to amplify the organisation automating operations, decision intelligence and user experience where it adds real value.

We Are Looking for Someone Who Browse our curated collection of remote jobs across all categories and industries, featuring positions from top companies worldwide.

• Has 8+ years of hands-on experience in AI/ML or full-stack systems and leading or growing engineering teams.
• Can lead architecture while still being close to the code, comfortable reviewing PRs, debugging production issues, and prototyping new ideas.
• Has expert-level programming skills in Python an d strong command of AI/ML frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Hugging Face, LangChain, RAG pipelines and vector search.
• Has shipped LLM-based or ML-based products to real users at scale, including fine-tuning, evaluation and deployment.
• Has strong full-stack engineering depth — modern frontends (React / Next.js / Vue), backends (Node.js / Express or Python / FastAPI / Django / Flask), databases, and cloud (AWS / GCP / Azure).
• Enjoys mentoring engineers and building a strong technical culture not just shipping features, but raising the bar for the people around them.
• Has experience designing for low-resource, on-device or offline-first environments (a strong plus, given our learner context).
• Believes technology can and should be a force for social equity, and is excited to apply their craft to education for underserved communities.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience as a CTO, VP of Engineering, Founding Engineer, or Tech Lead at an early-stage startup or impact organisation.
• Experience with MLOps tooling (MLflow, Weights & Biases, Kubeflow, etc.), agent frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI) and modern inference stacks (vLLM, Ollama, TensorRT-LLM).
• Background in EdTech, learning sciences, or building products for Bharat (Tier 2/3/4 India).
• Open-source contributions, research publications, or a public body of technical work.

What We Offer

• Real-world impact: Build AI that directly changes the lives of 1 crore underserved learners not a slide deck, not a pilot.
• **Leadership & ownership: **Shape the AI strategy, the tech stack, and the next generation of engineers at NavGurukul.
• A place to belong: A community that cares for your mind, body and soul paid Vipassana breaks, 26 paid learning Saturdays a year, and a circle of curious, kind, passionate people.
• **Autonomy & space to build: **Trust, ownership and the room to experiment, fail and ship.
• Remote: Work from anywhere in India, with ~30% travel to spend time at our beautiful Igatpuri HQ and on our campuses with learners and the team.

Compensation We are a nonprofit, and our salaries are significantly lower than corporate benchmarks — often 70-80% lower for senior members. Compensation will be in line with NavGurukul's nonprofit pay structure and based on your experience. Travel costs are covered by the organisation. But what we offer is something deeper purpose, ownership, a close-knit community, and the joy of building technology that changes lives. If that resonates, we would love to talk.

AI for Learning. Learning for Everyone.

Let's build the future of learning, together! : )

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